Hinduism: Philosophy, Religion, Culture and their disconnect

I look at Hinduism from 3 different angles its philosophy, its religion and its culture. I look at it that way because, I find literature, thoughts and practices that are focussed on those three pillars and not necessarily coherently connected. Ideally you should have had the religion build on the philosophy and the culture build on the religion and be consistent in messaging but atleast that is not the way it appears to me. I find this disconnect my biggest stumbling block although many people are very happy to ignore these disconnect and just look at the common thread. The reason this is important to me is, I want to discriminate the part contributed by the Creator which would be consistent across dimensions and the part embellished by humans since it always keeps changing with time. At this point, I need to pause here, as I have introduced the Creator and stated certain assumptions which itself many people are happy to challenge. If you are one of those who is not even sure about the Creator’s existence then the rest of the article does not make sense. However, I do intend to post another article on why I believe Creator exists and once I do that, will provide a link here. Now, moving on.

Hindu Philosophy: Upanishads form the basis of Hindu Philosophy. I have read few of the Upanishads and their interpretation (from Sri Adi Shankara) and also attended few discourses on this subject and based on all those will summarize one fact which I am sure everyone who has studied that will agree, which is “Upanishads mention Brahman (Supreme being aka Creator aka God), never mention God by any name, always refer God in a neutral gender and state that the purpose of the creation is for the creation to realize and be one with the Creator. There is only one Creator”. If you pause and think for a moment, this is a brilliant, most politically correct statement that is applicable across all religions, across all times. For novices, Upanishads (aka Vedanta , “end of Vedas” ) are not texts separate from Vedas but the portion of the text that is towards end of the four Vedic texts (RigVeda, SamaVeda, Atharva Veda and Yajur Veda). Ask a proud Hindu or better a Hindu zealot, he will tell you how his religion (not necessarily his faith) is grounded in Vedas and Upanishads (although most likely he has never read any of them or can tell you the difference between them). Much of the Vedanta or Upanishad focuses on the persons ability to see the perceived fallacy of the physical creation, discriminate and distance himself from it and realize God hidden behind it. Advaita philosophy takes it one step further and states that when you finally realize God after doing all that you did, you will realize that you were him or he was you all along. A big statement, which I do not agree with but more about that in another post. Upanishad stress is on the power of discrimination and not so much on the deeds.


Hindu Religion: Hindu religion on the other hand is based around the three main deities (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva) and the numerous other Gods and gods (note the “G” and “g” ). Puranas, Ramayan, Mahabharat and BhagvadGeeta form the basis of this pillar and you will soon see the disconnect between these and the Upanishads. Here are the disconnects that come to my mind
1. If the objective of the creation was for people to see the maya (perceived fallacy of the creation) and rise above it to realize the Creator, what was the need for the Creator to come down to earth in an avatar and destroy the evil and in essence try to correct the maya? Shouldn’t humans have realized the maya behind the happiness and sorrow, good and evil and see the things behind those? If the Upanishads were right and and Hinduism rests on those, then all the stories about various Gods and the avatars become meaningless. Interestingly Hindu religion rests on these stories. So, either both (Upanishads and the Avatar) or one of the two must be incorrect.
2. If the Creator is one, what are the three entities (Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma)? If these are Gods in equal standing and are true peers, then haven’t we already violated the Upanishads which said Brahman is One. If they are not actually 3 Gods and are functional heads of the same personality, then shouldn’t we not be worshipping that central personality instead of his functional heads? Here is an interesting fact that most of you may probably not know. Brahma was born out of Vishnu and created the universe. That being the case, is Brahma even needed and rightly attributed as the Creator, since he himself was created by Vishnu? With that logic, it is now just between Shiva and Vishnu. This is also reflected in the fact that there are no followers of Brahma. Do you see an interesting fact here? Brahma who sounds similar to Brahman of Upanishad ceases to exist among masses (with no followers) and is that reflective of what has become of Hinduism where we have gotten rid of the Creator and worship everything other than Him? I know I am stretching things a little, but just wanted to seed that thought.
3. Bhagavad Geeta, which is further distillation of Upanishad (or as is popularly called the honey extracted from Upanishad) introduces the concept of reincarnation and how the Atman (spirit inside all living beings) has to evolve through multiple births and deaths through higher forms of life (Humans being the highest) before it gets to realize God. Upanishads stress on the power of discrimination to realize God, while good deeds (karma) are needed to advance from low-life forms to higher life forms. Good or bad is rooted in conscience (the power to discriminate and make moral judgements), which is only manifested in humans and not in any other life forms. That being the case, how is the Atman (spirit) in the amoeba supposed to evolve to the next higher form without that tool? How does it know what good to do? How will it pass the graduation test? Our own experience tells us that many animals (Cows, dogs) do lot more good to humanity than the rapists, serial killers and terrorists. How in the world did these guys evolve out of those simple yet benign cows and dogs? Did they cheat on their graduation test when they graduated from cows & dogs to humans?

Hindu Culture: I am sure by now, you yourself can describe several practices that exist in our society that stake a claim to their basis in the religion and yet are vastly different from each other, which means not all of them are true. A simple example will illustrate a very important cultural belief. Festival of Deepavali or Deewali is celebrated all over India and an important part of Hindu culture. Ask a north Indian and he will tell you that this marks the return of Ram to Ayodhya after the battle of Lanka. Ask a south Indian and he will tell you that this marks the slaying of Narakasura by Krishna. I don’t know about you but the first time I became aware of this difference, I was stunned. How can something this big and important mean so completely different things to different people in India? And I am not even sure where this festival and deities associated with them (Ram or Krishna) lies in the pecking order to people in Tamil Nadu as their practices and beliefs are slightly different although they are as much part of Hinduism. There are many of us who are aware of some of the silliness in our practices but continue to adhere to them with devotion because we do not want to the spoil sport. My question is, if we are doing this in the name of God or to please God and we are aware that these are not really meaningful, aren't we insulting God by doing them? Contrast this with Jews, where regardless of which country they live in, they all read the same book and have same practices and same festivals with the same significance. I like Jews and respect their faith and you will see that I will contrast Hinduism with Judaism lot more later on in subsequent posts.

I am going to conclude this post by saying, I have just scratched the surface here and many of my initial posts are going to be focussed on provoking questions in the readers mind. I will gradually shift towards discussing God once I feel I have done enough of the ground work in generating interest and curiosity in the mind of the reader. Given that this is a subject that no one can claim expertise on, I urge the readers to respond back with your thoughts, comments or forward the link to people who you think might have a similar or differing opinion so that I can continue to learn. Until next time ...