Hinduism is mankind’s oldest spiritual declaration
Tapas K. Das
TAPAS K. DAS
Hinduism is unique among the world’s religions. To begin with, it is mankind’s oldest spiritual declaration, the very fountainhead of faith on the planet. It is the only religion, to my knowledge, that is not founded in a single historic event or prophet, but which itself precedes recorded history.
Hinduism has been called the “cradle of spirituality” and “the mother of all religions,” partly because it has influenced virtually every major religion. This is possible because Hinduism looks compassionately on all genuine spiritual effort and knows unmistakably that all souls are evolving toward union with the divine, and all are destined, without exception, to achieve spiritual enlightenment and liberation in this or a future life.
Hinduism is also the world’s only religion that allows scientific experiment with – and questioning of – the existence of God. Unlike any other religion, it does not have a traditional dogma. In fact, the only dogma it has is that it must not have one. It is the only religion that fosters diversity in a true sense. If you have a faith, any faith, you are already a Hindu.
In Hinduism, the divine can be conceived as a feminine form – another uniqueness. While people of some prominent religions are fighting for the superiority of their gods through brute force, in a demonstration of catholicity and respect for diversity, the Hindu seekers declared nearly 8,000 years before Christ: Ekam sat, vipra bahuda bedanti (truth is one, sages call it by various names).
Spoken in mathematical context, the search for ultimate truth was started by the Hindus through a method analogous to the solution of a transcendental equation where unknown cannot express as an explicit function of the known, requiring a trial-and-error solution. Implicit in the approach is the fact that while the solution is unique, the path to the solution is not. A seeker assumes a model, focuses on it as a god, and eventually discovers that it is not God. The seeker then takes the opposite approach, eliminates what is not God, and eventually transcends to the ultimate truth. In seeking ultimate truth from both directions, the Hindus discovered the null, later on called zero.
Hinduism has a great diversity among its many sects. That diversity is itself a strength, showing how broad and encompassing Hinduism is. It does not seek to have all devotees believe exactly alike. In fact, it has no central authority, no single organized institution that could ever proclaim or enforce sameness. There is an immense inner unity, but the real strength and wisdom of Hinduism is its diversity, its variety.
Each sect may be said to be a full religion in its own right, with all the increments of faith, with no necessary part missing. Therefore, each sect works for the individuals within it completely, and each tolerates all the other sects. It does not totally divorce itself from the other sects, denying their beliefs, but simply separates to stress or expound upon a limited area of the vast philosophy, apart from all others, to be understood by the limited faculties of man.
Tapas K. Das, a chemical and environmental engineer at the Department of Ecology, is a member of The Olympian’s Diversity Panel.