Hindu Samskriti Ten Questions About Hinduism people ask …and ten terrific answers! -2
Posted in Labels: Hindu Samskriti Ten Questions About Hinduism people ask -2
Ten Questions
About Hinduism
people ask
…and ten terrific answers!
4. Why do Hindus worship
the cow?
Hindus don’t worship
cows. We respect, honor and
adore the cow. By
honoring this gentle animal, who
gives more than she
takes, we honor all creatures
Hindus
regard all living creatures
as sacred—mammals,
fishes, birds and more. We
acknowledge this reverence for
life in our special affection for the
cow. At festivals we decorate and
honor her, but we do not worship
her in the sense that we worship
the Deity.
To the Hindu, the cow symbolizes
all other creatures. The cow
is a symbol of the Earth, the nourisher,
the ever-giving, undemanding
provider. The cow represents
life and the sustenance of life. The
cow is so generous, taking nothing
but water, grass and grain. It gives
and gives and gives of its milk, as
does the liberated soul give of his
spiritual knowledge. The cow is so
vital to life, the virtual sustainer of
life, for many humans. The cow is
a symbol of grace and abundance.
Veneration of the cow instills in
Hindus the virtues of gentleness,
receptivity and connectedness
with nature.
Elaboration:
Who is the greatest
giver on planet Earth today? Who
do we see on every table in every
country of the world—breakfast,
lunch and dinner? It is the cow.
McDonald’s cow-vending golden
arches and their rivals have made
fortunes on the humble cow. The
generous cow gives milk and
cream, yogurt and cheese, butter
and ice cream, ghee and buttermilk.
It gives entirely of itself
through sirloin, ribs, rump, porterhouse
and beef stew. Its bones
are the base for soup broths and
glues. It gives the world leather
belts, leather seats, leather coats
and shoes, beef jerky, cowboy
hats—you name it. The only cow-question for
Hindus is, “Why
don’t more people respect and protect this
remarkable creature?”
Mahatma Gandhi once said, “One can measure
the greatness of
a nation and its moral progress by the way it
treats its animals.
Cow protection to me is not mere
protection of the cow. It means
protection of all that lives and is
helpless and weak in the world.
The cow means the entire subhuman
world.”
In the Hindu tradition, the
cow is honored, garlanded and
given special feedings at festivals
all over India, most importantly
the annual Gopashtama festival.
Demonstrating how dearly
Hindus love their cows, colorful
cow jewelry and clothing is sold
at fairs all over the Indian countryside.
From a young age, Hindu
children are taught to decorate
the cow with garlands, paint and
ornaments. Her nature is epitomized
in Kamadhenu, the divine,
wish-fulfilling cow. The cow and
her sacred gifts—milk and ghee in
particular—are essential elements
in Hindu worship, penance and
rites of passage. In India, more
than 3,000 institutions called
Gaushalas, maintained by charitable
trusts, care for old and infirm
cows. And while many Hindus
are not vegetarians, most respect
the still widely held code of abstaining
from eating beef.
By her docile, tolerant nature,
the cow exemplifies the cardinal
virtue of Hinduism, noninjury,
known as ahimsa. The cow also
symbolizes dignity, strength, endurance,
maternity and selfless
service.
In the Vedas, cows
represent
wealth and joyous Earthly life.
From the Rig Veda (4.28.1;6) we
read. “The cows have come and
have brought us good fortune. In
our stalls, contented, may they
stay! May they bring forth calves for us,
many-colored, giving milk
for Indra each day. You make, O cows, the
thin man sleek; to the
unlovely you bring beauty. Rejoice our
homestead with pleasant
lowing. In our assemblies we laud your
vigor.”
5. Are Hindus idol
worshipers?
Hindus do not worship a
stone or metal “idol” as God. We
worship God through the
image. We invoke the presence of
God from the higher,
unseen worlds, into the image so that
we can commune with Him
and receive His blessings
The
stone or metal Deity images
in Hindu temples and
shrines are not mere symbols
of the Gods. They are the form
through which their love, power
and blessings flood forth into this
world. We may liken
this mystery
to our ability to communicate with
others through the telephone. We
do not talk to the telephone; rather
we use it as a means of communication
with another person.
Without the telephone, we could
not converse across long distances;
and without the sanctified icon in
the temple, we cannot easily commune
with the Deity. Divinity can
also be invoked and felt in a sacred
fire, or in a tree, or in the enlightened
person of a satguru.
In
our temples, God is invoked in the
sanctum by highly trained priests.
Through the practice of yoga, or
meditation, we invoke God inside
ourself. Yoga means
to yoke oneself
to God within. The image or
icon of worship is a focus for our
prayers and devotions.
Another way to explain icon
worship is to acknowledge that
Hindus believe God is everywhere,
in all things, whether stone, wood,
creatures or people. So, it is not
surprising that they feel comfortable
worshiping the Divine in His
material manifestation. The Hindu
can see God in stone and water,
fire, air and ether, and inside his
own soul. Indeed, there are Hindu
temples which have in the sanctum
sanctorum no image at all but
a yantra, a symbolic or mystic
diagram.
However, the sight of the image
enhances
the devotee’s worship.
Elaboration:
In
Hinduism one of
the ultimate attainments is when the seeker
transcends the need of
all form and symbol. This is the yogi’s goal.
In this way Hinduism is
the least idol-oriented of all the religions
of the world. There is no
religion that is more aware of the
transcendent, timeless, formless,
causeless Truth. Nor is there any
religion which uses more symbols
to represent Truth in preparation
for that realization.
Humorously speaking, Hindus
are not idle worshipers. I have
never seen a Hindu worship in
a lazy or idle way. They worship
with great vigor and devotion,
with unstinting regularity and
constancy. There’s nothing idle
about our ways of worship! (A
little humor never hurts.)
But, of course, the question
is about “graven images.” All
religions have their symbols of
holiness through which the sacred
flows into the mundane. To
name a few: the Christian cross,
or statues of Mother Mary and
Saint Theresa, the holy Kaaba
in Mecca,
the Sikh Adi Granth
enshrined in the Golden Temple
in Amritsar,
the Arc and Torah
of the Jews, the image of a meditating
Buddha, the totems of indigenous
and Pagan faiths, and
the artifacts of the holy men and
women of all religions. Such icons,
or graven images, are held in awe
by the followers of the respective
faiths. The question is, does
this make all such religionists
idol worshipers? The answer is,
yes and no. From our perspective,
idol worship is an intelligent,
mystical practice shared by all of
the world’s great faiths.
The human mind releases itself
from suffering through the
use of forms and symbols that
awaken reverence, evoke sanctity
and spiritual wisdom. Even
a fundamentalist Christian who
rejects all forms of idol worship,
including those of the Catholic and Episcopal
churches, would resent
someone who showed disrespect for his Bible.
This is because
he considers it sacred. His book and the
Hindu’s icon are much alike
in this way.
6. Are Hindus forbidden to
eat meat?
Hindus teach
vegetarianism as a way to live
with a minimum of hurt
to other beings. But in
today’s world not all
Hindus are vegetarians.
Our
religion does not lay
down rigid “do’s and don’ts.”
There are no commandments.
Hinduism gives us the wisdom
to make up our own mind on
what we put in our body, for it is
the only one we have—in this life,
at least. Vegetarians are more numerous
in the South of India than
in the North. This is because of the
North’s cooler climactic conditions
and past Islamic influence.
Priests and religious leaders
are definitely vegetarian, so as
to maintain a high level of purity
and spiritual consciousness to fulfill
their responsibilities, and to
awaken the refined areas of their
nature. Soldiers and law-enforcement
officers are generally not
vegetarians, because they have to
keep alive their aggressive forces
in order to perform their work.
To practice yoga and be successful
in meditation, it is mandatory
to be vegetarian. It is a matter
of wisdom—the application of
knowledge at any given moment.
Today, about twenty percent of
all Hindus are vegetarians.
Elaboration:
This can be a
touchy subject. There are several
ways to respond, depending on
who is asking and the background
in which he was raised. But the
overlying principle that defines
the Hindu answer to this query is
ahimsa—refraining
from injuring,
physically, mentally or emotionally,
anyone or any living creature.
The Hindu who wishes to strictly
follow the path of noninjury naturally
adopts a vegetarian diet. It’s
a matter of conscience more than
anything else.
When we eat meat, fish, fowl and eggs, we
absorb the vibration
of the instinctive creatures into our nerve
system. This chemically
alters our consciousness and amplifies our
lower nature, which
is prone to fear, anger, jealousy, confusion,
resentment and the
like. Many Hindu swamis advise
followers to be well-established
vegetarians prior to initiation
into mantra, and to remain vegetarian
thereafter. But most do
not insist upon vegetarianism for
those not seeking initiation. Swamis
have learned that families
who are vegetarian have fewer
problems than those who are not.
Poignant scriptural citations
counsel against eating meat. The
Yajur Veda (36.18) calls for kindliness
toward all creatures living
on the Earth, in the air and in the
water. The Tirukural, a 2,200-yearold
masterpiece of ethics, states,
“When a man realizes that meat
is the butchered flesh of another
creature, he will abstain from eating
it” (257). The Manu Dharma
Shastras state,
“Having well considered
the origin of flesh and the
cruelty of fettering and slaying
corporeal beings, let one entirely
abstain from eating flesh,” and
“When the diet is pure, the mind
and heart are pure.”
For guidance in this and all matters,
Hindus also rely on their own
guru, community elders, their own
conscience and their knowledge
of the benefits of abstaining from
meat and enjoying a wholesome
vegetarian diet. Of course, there
are good Hindus who eat meat,
and there are not-so-good Hindus
who are vegetarians.
Today in America
and Europe
millions of people are vegetarians
because they want to live a long
time and be healthy. Many feel a
moral obligation to shun the mentality
of violence to which meateating
gives rise. There are good
books on vegetarianism, such as Diet for a New America, by John
Robbins. There
is also a fine magazine called Vegetarian
Times. Mr.
Robbins’ insightful “How to Win an Argument
with a Meat-Eater”
Om Tat Sat
(Continued...)
(My
humble salutations to Sadguru Sri Sivaya
Subramuniyaswami
ji, Hinduism Today dot com for the collection)
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