Hinduism - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Hinduism

The Sacred Thread

spiritual training only for upper-caste males

women and shudras excluded

cord of three threads worn over the shoulder

• Traditional life periods
• 25yrs each
• chaste student and teacher
• householder stage
• raise a family contribute productively to society
• begin retirement from society
• age of 75 sees full detachment
• a sannyasin
• ashram - monastic life

• The guru
• “the venerable”
• a teacher
• do not proclaim themselves teachers, the students simply come
• no guru necessary for the sincere earnest seeker…most need help

• Yoga
• yoke or union with the infinite consciousness
• One should use some form of disciplined technique to achieve this.
• Raja Yoga
• Jnana Yoga
• Karma Yoga
• Bhakti Yoga

• Raja Yoga (89)
• asanas - physical postures
• prana - invisible life energy
• chakras - bodily energy centers
• mantras, sound repetition
• yantras - a visual form

• Jnana Yoga
• rational mind emphasis
• restraint, renunciation, resignation, concentration, faith
• not mind, not senses, not body, then what?

• Karma Yoga
• any service rendered without thought or interest in its effect on anything
• God doing it through you, but not you

• Bhakti Yoga
• love affair for the god
• the bhakta EXPECTS the god to appear at any time

Three unifying aspects

creating

preserving

destroying

• Three major groupings of deity types;
• Vaishnavites
• Saivites
• Saktas

• Vaishnavites
• worship divine as Vishnu
• the tender, merciful deity
• basis for Hare Krishnas
• the lotus floats serenely on the water with it’s roots firmly in the mud
• refined spiritual energy rising from worldly contamination

• Saivites
• worship divine as Siva
• Siva = destroyer
• Often represented with a consort (Parvati his spouse)

• Saktas
• worship the female creative power
• Durga
• beautiful woman with ten arms and weapons
• Kali
• warrior goddess
• destruction is actually transformation
• one hand a sword, one a head, one saying fear not…
• mask of ugliness, symbolizing pleasant with unpleasant, creation and destruction

• Ultimate faith in one genderless deity
• Brahmin

Three common features

rooted in Vedas and other scriptures and truth through meditation

ethics are central to social life, hence good and bad karma are incentive for living ethical lives

cause of suffering is peoples ignorance of their true self, THE true self

• Two common systems
• Samkhya
• Advaita Vedanta

• Samkhya
• dualistic
• pre-vedic
• two states of reality
• purusha = eternal self that is wise, pure, etc.
• prakriti = the cause of the material universe

• Advaita Vedanta
• monistic
• single reality
• life is an illusion we make it. The absolute is there, we misperceive

rites of passage

cleanliness is a NECCESITY

multisensual

sounds, smells, taste, sights, touch all involved

the image of the deity

NOT the deity

• Festivals
• riotously joyous
• water pistols in worship!

awareness of spiritual truth

non-violent resistance to military-industrial oppression

• Transcendental Meditation
• a stilling of the mind and internal reaching for the true reality
• for couple mil we can stop your crime

• Hindu fundamentalism
• restoration of perfect rule, like in legendary times with perfect Hindu virtue being observed

• Exodus to Christianity
• no castes