Hindus believe that earthly life is cyclical; you are born again and again (a process known as samsara), the quality of these rebirths being dependent upon your karma in previous lives. Living a righteous life and fulfilling your dharma will enhance your chances of being born into a higher caste and better circumstances. Alternatively, if enough bad karma has accumulated, rebirth may take animal form. It is only as a human that you can gain sufficient self-knowledge to escape the cycle of reincarnation and achieve moksha (spiritual liberation.)

Hindu sacred texts fall into two categories: those believed to be the word of god (shruti, meaning heard) and those produced by people (smriti, meaning remembered.) The Vedas are regarded as shruti knowledge and are considered the authoritative basis for Hinduism. The oldest of the Vedic texts, the Rig-Veda, was compiled over 3,000 years ago. The Upanishads form the conclusions of each of the Vedas. They present the fundamental teachings that are central to Hinduism — the concepts of "karma" (cause and effect), "punarjanma" (reincarnation), "moksha" (nirvana), the "atman" (soul), and the "Brahman" (the Godhead or Absolute.)

The Mahabharata (a smriti work), thought to have been composed some time around the 1^st millennium BCE, focuses on the exploits of Krishna. By 500 BCE the Mahabharata had evolved into a far more complex creation with substantial additions, including the Bhagavad Gita in which Krishna proffers advice to Arjuna before a battle.

The number 7 has special significance in Hinduism. There are seven sacred Indian cities, each of which are major pilgrimage centers; Varanasi (associated with Shiva); Haridwar (where the Ganges enters the plains from the Himalaya); Ayodhya (birthplace of Rama); Dwarka (with the legendary capital of Krishna thought to be off the Gujarat coast); Mathura (birthplace of Krishna); Kanchipuram (site of Shiva temples); and Ujjain (site every 12 years of the Kumbh Mela.) There are also seven sacred rivers: the Ganges (Ganga), Saraswati (thought to be underground); Yamuna, Indus, Narmada, Godavari, and Cauvery.

According to Hindu belief, the lotus flower emerged from the primeval waters and is connected to the mythical center of earth through its stem.

Hinduism is practiced by 827 million Indians, approximately 80% of India’s population of 1,027,015,247 (as of 2001), and has become the world’s third largest religion, after Christianity and Islam.

Vedas - Katha Upanishad I
"The goal which all the Vedas declare, which all austerities aim at, and which men desire when they lead the life of continence … is OM. This syllable OM is indeed Brahman. Whosoever knows this syllable obtains all that he desires. This is the best support; this is the highest support. Whosoever knows this support is adored in the world of Brahma."

Om or Aum is of paramount importance in Hinduism. This symbol is a sacred syllable representing Brahman, the impersonal Absolute — omnipotent, omnipresent, and the source of all manifest existence. Brahman is incomprehensible; so a symbol helps people realize the Unknowable. Om, therefore, represents both the unmanifest and manifest aspects of God. That is why it is called Pranava, to mean that it pervades life and runs through our prana or breath.

Om is not a word but rather an intonation, which, like music, transcends the barriers of age, race, culture, and even species. It is made up of three Sanskrit letters, aa, au, and ma which, when combined together, make the sound Aum or Om. It is believed to be the basic sound of the world and to contain all other sounds. It is a mantra or prayer in itself. If repeated with the correct intonation, it can resonate throughout the body so that the sound penetrates to the center of one's being, the atman or the soul.

Bhagavad Gita
The story of the Bhagavad Gita centers on the conflict between the heroic gods (Pandavas) and the demons (Kauravas.) Overseeing events is Krishna (an incarnation of the god of “right action”,Vishnu), who has taken on human form. Krishna acts as charioteer for the Pandava hero Arjuna, who eventually triumphs in a great battle with the Kauravas.

“Sri Krishna: Listen and I shall explain now, Arjuna, how one who has attained perfection also attains Brahman, the supreme consummation of wisdom.
Unerring in his discrimination, sovereign of his senses and passions, free from the clamor of likes and dislikes, he leads a simple, self-reliant life based on meditation, controlling his speech, body, and mind. Free from self-will, aggressiveness, arrogance, anger, and the lust to possess people or things, he is at peace with himself and others and enters into the unitive state. United with Brahman, ever joyful, beyond the reach of desire and sorrow, he has equal regard for every living creature and attains supreme devotion to me. By loving me he comes to know me truly; then he knows my glory and enters into my boundless being. All his acts are performed in my service, and through my grace he wins eternal life.
Make every act an offering to me; regard me as your only protector. Relying on interior discipline, meditate on me always, Remembering me, you shall overcome all difficulties through my grace. But if you will not heed me in your self-will, nothing will avail you.” (Chapter 18)

http://www.censusindia.net/religiondata/

Easwaran, Eknath (translator), The Bhagavad Gita, Tomales, CA: Nilgiri Press, 1985.

http://hinduism.about.com/

http://www.religioustolerance.org/hinduism.htm

Singh, Sarina et al, India, Victoria, Australia: Lonely Planet Publications, 2005.

Buddhism
Buddhism in India began with the life of Siddhartha Gautama (c. 563-483 BCE), a prince from the small Shakya Kingdom located in the foothills of the Himalayas near the Nepalese/Indian border. Brought up in luxury, the prince abandoned his home and became a penniless and homeless wanderer, searching for the meaning of existence.

After a long and exhausting period of searching and self-mortification, he became disillusioned with Hindu asceticism and the religious doctrines of his time. He devoted the final phase of his quest to meditation and, at the age of 35, achieved nirvana (the state of full awareness) at Bodhgaya (Bihar, India), while meditating under a peepul (fig) tree. Critical of the caste system and the unthinking worship of gods, the Buddha (Enlightened One) urged his disciples to seek truth within their own experiences.

Initially, Buddhism remained one of the many small sects in India. The main breakthrough came when King Asoka (c. 270 – 232 BCE) converted to Buddhism. In the 5th century CE, a Buddhist monastic university was founded at Nalanda, India. This university would become the largest and most influential Buddhist center for many centuries to come. By the 13th century, following a series of invasions by Turkish Muslims who destroyed the Indian universities and killed many prominent monks, Buddhism as an organized religion had practically disappeared from India.

In 1956 in the state of Maharashutra, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar held a conversion ceremony for over 500,000 Untouchables who converted to Buddhism. One of the underlying goals of this conversion was to reduce the influence of the Hindu caste system in India and its detrimental influence on people of the lower castes. When added to the small Buddhist populations in hill areas of northeast India and high Himalayan valleys, and to the influx of Tibetan Buddhist refugees who fled from Tibet with the Dalai Lama in 1959 and thereafter, the converts made Buddhism the fifth largest religious group in the country by 1991.  In 2001, there were 7.9 million Buddhists in India. About 80% of this population live in the state of Maharashutra; mainly connected to Dr. Ambedkar's efforts.

The Teachings of Buddha: The Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path

The Four Noble Truths are these: life involves suffering; desire is the source of our suffering; there is a way to put an end to our desire; the way out of desire is to live one's life according to eight basic principles.

The Noble Eightfold Path includes; right understanding (or view), right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right awareness (or mindfulness) and right concentration. By successfully complying with these one can attain nirvana (freedom from suffering, the ultimate reality.)

http://www.dalailama.com/

Goenka, S.N., The Discourse Summaries of S.N. Goenka, Seattle: Vispassana Research Publication, 1987.

http://www.indianchild.com/buddhism_in_india.htm

http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/index.html

Jainism
Jainism is one of the world’s oldest living religions. There are approximately 4.2 million Jains in the world, most of whom live in India. Jain, or Jina, means a conqueror--one who has conquered the worldly passions such as desire, hatred, anger, greed, and pride by one's own personal efforts. A Jina is a human being; not a supernatural being or an incarnation of an almighty God. All human beings have the potential to become a Jina.

According to legend, Mahavira (The Great Hero, c. 599 – 527 BCE), a comtemporary of Buddha, was born to a ruling family in Vaishali, located in the modern state of Bihar. At the age of 30, he renounced his wealthy life and devoted himself to fasting and self-mortification in order to purify his consciousness and discover the meaning of existence. He never again lived in a house, owned property, or wore clothing of any sort. Following the example of the teacher Parshvanatha (9th century BCE), he attained enlightenment and spent the rest of his life meditating and teaching a dedicated group of disciples who formed a monastic order following rules he laid down.

The ancient belief system of Jainism rests on a concrete understanding of the working of karma, its effects on the living soul (jiva), and the conditions for extinguishing action and the soul's release. According to the Jain view, the soul is a living substance that combines with various kinds of nonliving matter and through action accumulates particles of matter that adhere to it and determine its fate. Most of the matter perceptible to human senses, including all animals and plants, is attached in various degrees to living souls and is in this sense alive. Any action has consequences that necessarily follow the embodied soul, but the worst accumulations of matter come from violence against other living beings. The ultimate Jain discipline, therefore, rests on complete inactivity and absolute nonviolence (ahimsa) against any living beings. Some Jain monks and nuns wear face masks to avoid accidentally inhaling small organisms, and all practicing believers are vegetarians.

Primarily Jainism assumes that the universe is without a beginning or an end, being everlasting and eternal. There exist six fundamental entities in the universe, which are eternal but continuously undergo countless changes. During the changes nothing is lost or destroyed. Everything is recycled into another form.

Mahavir explained that every living being (soul) due to its ignorance is in bondage of karmic atoms known as karma. These karma are continuously accumulated by our actions of body, mind and speech. Under the influence of karma, the soul is habituated to seek pleasure in materialistic belongings and possessions. This is the deep-rooted cause of self-centered violent thoughts, deeds, anger, hatred, greed, and such other vices that result in further accumulation of karma.

One can get rid of karma and attain liberation by simultaneously following the path of right faith, right knowledge, and right conduct. Proper knowledge of the six universal substances (six Dravya) and the nine fundamental truths (nine Tattva) is called right knowledge and true faith in that knowledge is called right faith. The right conduct includes nonviolence, self-purification, compassion, penance, austerity, and meditation.

www.jainism.org

http://www.indianchild.com/jainism.htm

Christianity
According to Rosicrucian tradition, around the age of 13, Jesus was conducted to India where he studied under the guidance of a Buddhist Master, Lamaas, who was given the responsibility of perfecting Jesus’s mystical education. Jesus was initiated into the most esoteric Buddhist teachings and received training that lasted five years, designed to complete the awakening of all his psychic faculties (Rosicrucian monographs, Degree 10.)

Christianity is said to have arrived in South India with St. Thomas the Apostle in 52 CE. However, scholars say it is more likely that Christianity arrived in the 4^th century with an Armenian merchant, Thomas Cana, who set out for Kerala, India with 400 families.

Catholicism established a strong presence in South India in the wake of Vasco da Gama’s (Portuguese explorer) visit in 1498. Orders that have been active in the region include the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Jesuits.

24 million Christians live in India (2001 census.)

Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia (formerly Yugoslavia), on August 27, 1910. Her family was of Albanian descent. At the age of 18 she left her home in Skopje and joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with missions in India. After a few months' training in Dublin she was sent to India, where in 1931, she took her initial vows as a nun. From 1931 to 1948 Mother Teresa taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta, but the suffering and poverty she glimpsed outside the convent walls made such a deep impression on her that in 1948 she received permission from her superiors to leave the convent school and devote herself to working among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta.

In 1950, Mother Teresa received permission from the Holy See to start her own order, "The Missionaries of Charity", whose primary task was to love and care for those persons nobody was prepared to look after. In 1965 the Society became an International Religious Family by a decree of Pope Paul VI.

The Society of Missionaries has spread all over the world, including the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. The Missionaries of Charity throughout the world are aided and assisted by Co-Workers who became an official International Association on March 29, 1969. By the 1990s there were over one million Co-Workers in more than 40 countries. Along with the Co-Workers, the lay Missionaries of Charity try to follow Mother Teresa's spirit and charisma in their families.

Mother Teresa's work has been recognized and acclaimed throughout the world and she received a number of awards and distinctions, including the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize (1971), the Nehru Prize for her promotion of international peace and understanding (1972), and the Nobel Peace Prize (1979.)

From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1971-1980, Editor-in-Charge Tore Frängsmyr, Editor Irwin Abrams, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1997

NEXT >>