Download File - World Religions

Ethical—Most Hindus:
• Ethics, which concerns itself with the study of conduct, is derived, in Hinduism, from certain spiritual concepts.
• Hindu ethics prescribes the disciplines for a spiritual life, which are to be observed consciously or unconsciously as long as a person lives.
Hindu ethics is mainly subjective or personal, its purpose being to eliminate such mental impurities as greed and egoism, for the ultimate
attainment of the highest good.
• Objective ethics, is based upon the Hindu conception of Dharma, or duty, related to a man’s position in society and his stage in life.
• Objective ethics, is a means to an end, its purpose being to help the members of society to rid themselves of self-centredness, cruelty, greed,
and other vices, and thus to create an environment helpful to the pursuit of the highest good, which transcends society.
• Hindus place greater emphasis on the attitude of the mind rather than on postulation of the elaborate theories of what is right and what is
wrong.
• Accordingly, the Hindu vision of morality and ethics is characterized by the following considerations:
• Morality proceeds from the inner spirit of a human being. In Hindu view, one's motive is as important in the performance of an action as
the action itself.
• When the heart is pure and free from lust and greed, whatever one does to perform one's duties has a high moral value.
• Harmlessness to all creatures is the highest morality.
• There are four sources of right conduct: Vedas, the Smriti (secondary scriptures), the conduct of wise persons, and the individual's own
judgment.
• In times of confusion and crisis regarding what is right and what is wrong, one's own conscience is the sole guide.
• An individual is ultimately responsible for his own actions, i.e. the Law of Karma. He is also responsible for the actions of others if he induces
or forces them to perform such actions.
• Hindus declare that loyalty to one's moral values is the highest loyalty, and of all the losses, loss of one's character and loss of judgment are
the worst.
Ethical—Most Hindus:
Yamas and Niyamas16 - Moral and Ethical Ideals of Hindus
Ahimsã (non-injury)
Satya (truthfulness)
Asteya (nonstealing)
Brahmachãrya (controlling sex)
Kshamã (forgiveness)
Dhriti (firmness)
Dayã (compassion)
Ãrjava (honesty)
Mitãhãra
Shaucha (purity)
Hrî (remorse)
Santosha (contentment)
Dãna (tithing)
Ãstikya (faith)
Pûjana (worship)
Shravana (hearing of Scriptures)
Mati (cognition)
Vrata (sacred vows)
Japa (chanting)
Tapas (austerity)
Don't harm others by word, deed or thought.
Refrain from lying and betraying promises.
Don't steal, covet or enter into debt.
Observe celibacy when single, and faithfulness in marriage.
Restrain from intolerance and ill will.
Overcome fear, indecision, and fickleness.
Conquer callous and insensitive feelings.
Renounce fraud, cheating and stealing.
Refrain from overeating and consuming meat.
Observe purity of the body, mind and intellect.
Be modest and show remorse for misconduct.
Don't be a slave to the senses. Seek joy and serenity in the Self.
Give generously without thought of reward. The more you give, the more you get.
Have unwavering faith in God's grace.
Perform daily worship and meditation.
Study scriptures, listen to the teachings of the wise, and faithfully follow guru's advice.
Sharpen the intellect with guru's guidance.
Observe scriptural injunctions faithfully.
Chant God's names and sacred mantras daily.
Perform sãdhana (spiritual discipline) as outlined by the guru.
Ethical—Hindus:
• Elaboration of the social code is found in the Mahabharata and informs Hindu ethics.
• There are four great aims of human life (purusharthas):
• dharma or righteousness,
• artha or wealth,
• kama or enjoyment and
• moksha or spiritual liberation;
• The four stages of life,
• the student or brahmacharya,
• the householder or grahasthya,
• the forest-dweller orvanaprastha
• the wandering ascetic or sanyasa: the four castes,
• the priest-teacher or Brahmin,
• the warrior or kshatriya,
• the trader or vaishya and
• the worker orshudra.
• The Manuva-shastra (codes of Manu) gives details of social rules and practices.
• Gita teaches that by fulfilling his class function to the best of his ability, with devotion to God and
without personal ambition, a man can find salvation, whatever his class.
• The teachings of the Bhagavad-Gita are summed up in the maxim 'your business is with deed and not
with the result'.
Ethical
• There are nine basic requirements that a Hindu should be aware of and follow. Personal
discipline, good conduct, self-inquiry and meditation are important. Here briefly are the nine
beliefs of Hinduism.
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Belief in the divinity of Vedas.
The Supreme Being is both immanent and transcendent, thus both a Creator and Un-manifest
Reality.
The universe is in an endless cycle of creation, preservation and dissolution.
One creates his own destiny by his thoughts, deeds and words. This law of cause and effect is
called the Karma.
Every soul evolves through a series of births and deaths (janma and punar-janma) until all karmas
have been resolved. The cycle of many births (samsara) is the opportunity to shed the effects of
karma in order to attain liberation (moksha) form the eternal cycle. Not a single soul is deprived of
this destiny.
Belief in the existence of divine beings in unseen worlds. Temple worship, rituals, sacraments as
well as personal devotions create a communion with the devas and God.
A master or a guru is essential to follow the right path to know the Transcendent Absolute.
All forms of life are sacred and are to be loved and revered. All must follow the practice of 'noninjury' or ahimsa.
No one particular religion teaches the 'only pathway' to salvation. All genuine religious paths are
facets of God's Light and Love, deserving tolerance and understanding.
Ritual and Worship:
• Within Hinduism, worship can include a wide range of practices and the boundaries between
worship, service, glorification, etc. are not always distinct.
• Ten principal acts of worship. Of these, the first two are most important. Traditions differ and
some of these practices change places on the list.
• Some of these practices are performed individually and some congregationally – and many can
be both.
• All of them can be performed at home as well as in the temple.
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Puja – ritual worship, especially of the deity
Arti – the greeting ceremony with lamps, etc.
Bhajan or Kirtan – hymns and chants (often during arti)
Darshan – taking audience of a deity or holy person
Prasad – offering and eating sacred food
Pravachan – talk or lecture on the scriptures
Havan – the sacred fire ceremony
Japa/Meditation/Prayer – internal practices of worship
Parikram/Pradakshina – circumambulation
Seva – active service, to the deity, holy people, etc.
Ritual and Worship:
• The early morning hours are the most peaceful and conducive to worship, prayer and meditation.
• Hindu worship displays a number of distinct features:
• The presence of the Divine is perceived in diverse ways and tends to be inclusive. Thus, there
is a complex array of focuses of worship.
• There are no specific days of worship, though days of the week are associated with particular
deities (e.g. Shiva is honoured on Monday and Hanuman on Tuesday).
• The time of day is important. The hours on either side of dawn are considered most auspicious for
worship, for they are influenced by the quality of goodness (see Prakriti and Guna).
• In India many temples begin their first public ceremony between four and six in the morning. Other
ceremonies take place during the day; evening worship is particularly popular.
• Hindu worship often appears to lack the solemnity we sometimes associate with religion. God can
be worshipped with awe and reverence but also with warmth, joy, and affection, as if He is a close
friend or a loved one.
Ritual and Worship:
• Domestic Worship
• The home is the place where most Hindus conduct their
worship and religious rituals.
• The most important times of day for performance of
household rituals are dawn and dusk, although especially
devout families may engage in devotion more often.
• For many households, the day begins when the women in
the house draw auspicious geometric designs in chalk or
rice flour on the floor or the doorstep.
• After a bath, there is personal worship of the gods at a
family shrine, which typically includes lighting a lamp and
offering foodstuffs before the images, while prayers in
Sanskrit or a regional language are recited.
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In the evenings, especially in rural areas, mostly female devotees may gather together for long sessions of
singing hymns in praise of one or more of the gods.
Minor acts of charity punctuate the day. During daily baths, there are offerings of a little water in memory of
the ancestors.
At each meal, families may set aside a handful of grain to be donated to beggars or needy persons, and daily
gifts of small amounts of grain to birds or other animals serve to accumulate merit for the family through their
self-sacrifice.
Ritual and Worship Arti
• Arti is the most popular ceremony within
Hinduism, often performed in temples six or
seven times per day.
• It is a greeting ceremony offered to the murti
and also gurus, holy people, and other
representations of the divine.
• Arti is often called "the ceremony of lights"
but usually involves offering more than just a
lamp.
• The priest or worshipper offers various
auspicious articles by moving them in
clockwise circles before the deity. At the
same time he or she rings a small hand bell,
while meditating on the forms of the deity.
• During the entire ceremony, which normally lasts from five to thirty minutes, the worshipper offers
incense, a flower, water, a five-wick lamp, a lamp with camphor and other items. The ceremony is
often announced and concluded by the blowing of a conch-shell.
• During the ceremony the offered lamp is passed around the congregation; members pass their
fingers over the flame and reverently touch them to their foreheads. The offered flowers are also
passed around worshippers and the water is sprinkled over their heads.
• Arti is usually accompanied by singing (bhajan/kirtan) and out of respect worshippers usually stand
for the entire ceremony.
Ritual and Worship:
• Hindu worship, or puja, involves images (murtis), prayers (mantras) and diagrams of the universe (yantras).
• Central to Hindu worship is the image, or icon, which can be worshipped either at home or in the temple.
• Hindu worship is primarily an individual act rather than a communal one, as it involves making personal
offerings to the deity.
• Worshippers repeat the names of their favorite gods and goddesses, and repeat mantras. Water, fruit, flowers
and incense are offered to god.
• The majority of Hindu homes have a shrine where offerings are made and prayers are said.
• A shrine can be anything: a room, a small altar or simply pictures or statues of the deity.
• Family members often worship together. Rituals should strictly speaking be performed three times a day.
• Some Hindus, but not all, worship wearing the sacred thread (over the left shoulder and hanging to the right
hip). This is cotton for the Brahmin (priest), hemp for the Kshatriya (ruler) and wool for the vaishya (merchants).
Lakshmi Puja
Puja candles
Ritual Personal Gods
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For the vast majority of Hindus, the most important religious path is bhakti
(devotion) to personal gods.
Wide variety of gods to choose from,
Sectarian adherence to particular deities is often strong, there is a widespread
acceptance of choice in the desired god (ishta devata) as the most appropriate
focus for any particular person.
Most devotees are therefore polytheists, worshiping all or part of the vast
pantheon of deities, some of whom have come down from Vedic times.
Puja consists of a series of ritual stages beginning with personal purification and
invocation of the god, followed by offerings of flowers, food, or other objects such
as clothing, accompanied by fervent prayers.
Some dedicated worshipers perform these ceremonies daily at their home
shrines; others travel to one or more temples to perform puja, alone or with the
aid of temple priests who receive offerings and present these offerings to the
gods.
The gifts given to the gods become sacred through contact with their images or
with their shrines, and may be received and used by worshipers as the grace
(prasada) of the divine.
Sacred ash or saffron powder, for example, is often distributed after puja and
smeared on the foreheads of devotees.
In the absence of any of these ritual objects, however, puja may take the form of
a simple prayer sent toward the image of the divine, and it is common to see
people stop for a moment before roadside shrines to fold their hands and offer
short invocations to the gods.
Ritual and Worship: Personal Gods
Gurus & Saints
• Since at least the seventh century A.D., the devotional path has spread from the south throughout India
through the literary and musical activities of saints who have been some of the most important representatives
of regional languages and traditions.
• The hymns of these saints and their successors, mostly in vernacular forms, are memorized and performed at
all levels of society.
• Every state in India has its own bhakti tradition and poets who are studied and revered.
• A recurring motif that emerges from the poetry and the hagiographies of these saints is the equality of all men
and women before God and the ability of people from all castes and occupations to find their way to union with
God if they have enough faith and devotion.
• In this sense, the bhakti tradition serves as one of the equalizing forces in Indian society and culture.
Ritual and Worship:
• Temple worship
• At a Hindu temple, different parts of the building have a
different spiritual or symbolic meaning.
• The central shrine is the heart of the worshipper
• The tower represents the flight of the spirit to
heaven
• A priest may read, or more usually recite, the Vedas
to the assembled worshippers, but any "twice-born"
Hindu can perform the reading of prayers and
mantras
Religious rites
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Hindu religious rites are classified into three categories:
Nitya
• Nitya rituals are performed daily and consist in offerings made at the home shrine or performing
puja to the family deities.
Naimittika
• Naimittika rituals are important but only occur at certain times during the year, such as
celebrations of the festivals, thanksgiving and so on.
Kamya
• Kamya are rituals which are "optional" but highly desirable. Pilgrimage is one such.
Ritual and Worship:
• The most notable feature in religious ritual is the division between purity and pollution. Religious acts
presuppose some degree of impurity or defilement for the practitioner, which must be overcome or
neutralized before or during ritual procedures.
• Purification, usually with water, is thus a typical feature of most religious action. Avoidance of the
impure--taking animal life, eating flesh, associating with dead things, or body fluids--is another feature of
Hindu ritual and is important for repressing pollution.
• In a social context, those individuals or groups who manage to avoid the impure are accorded increased
respect.
• Still another feature is a belief in the efficacy of sacrifice, including survivals of Vedic sacrifice. Thus,
sacrifices may include the performance of offerings in a regulated manner, with the preparation of sacred
space, recitation of texts, and manipulation of objects.
• A third feature is the concept of merit, gained through the performance of charity or good works, that will
accumulate over time and reduce sufferings in the next world.