The Ten Commandments of Hinduism

[Guest guest]

As per Ram Chandran's suggestion, I am posting below The Ten Commandments

of Hinduism from my book of the same name:

The following is a reproduction of the Prologue from the Book

A proper understanding of the essential positives of religion, even

though at an academic level, is necessary for the maintenance of an

attitude of unbroken tolerance, which is the most essential need of the

hour in the modern world, amidst all the strife, hatred and suspicion that

tempt us. In this book we shall highlight the most essential features

of the inner core of the religion called Hinduism (erroneously so named by

outsiders) and group them into TEN COMMANDMENTS. These ten commandments

or directive principles of the religion encompass the mainstream of

Hinduism except for a few practices and beliefs that have exhausted their

contextual relevance in the modern society. This prologue is a summary

statement of these Ten Commandments. The book itself is an elaboration

of the prologue. The elaboration will attempt to go into several

microdetails of scriptural authority, and elucidations of philosophical

concepts and expositions. In the process it will touch upon a few

mythological narrations and samples of devotional and scriptural

literature, their meaning and significance, their tenor and content.

 

That the ultimate expression of religion can only be through service to

mankind will not be contested by any one. Great servants of humanity, in

this century, like a Mother Theresa or a Mahatma Gandhi drew their

inspiration for this missionary zeal for service only through their

deep-rooted religious convictions -- the one in the universal gospel of

Love propagated by no less than the Son of God Himself through His supreme

sacrifice, and the other, in the essential Divinity inherent even in the

lowliest of beings, as declared by the highest of Hindu scriptures. In

spite of the fact that there is a multiplicity of scriptures in Hinduism

which vary from the very sophisticated to the very elementary ones, one

towering concept that emerges from every one of them is: Divinity is

everywhere. It is an ever-present entity. Whatever one sees, hears,

smells, tastes or touches is nothing but a spark of the Divinity, though

camouflaged by our ignorance. That one Divinity is the common substratum

for everything that exists. To realise the omnipresent Divinity by an

intuitive internal illumination is the major purpose of life's journey.

 

 

That everything is divine implies that each being, and in particular,

each human being, is divine. But when the being dies, it is only the

body and the external manifestations that die. The soul does not die.

It travels from body to body. But all the while, the mind, which clings

on to the soul, travels along with it. It actually carries with it the

weight of all the experiences of each life. This weight is just the

conglomeration of imprints of all the actions, thoughts and expressions

constituting each life and is technically known as Vâsanâs. The word

Vâsanâ means smell and these determine one's tendencies at birth. As far

as each life is concerned man has to express himself through his free will

and it is by the same free will he has to conquer the undesirable Vâsanâs

that prod him into unhealthy channels. Stand aloof from the mind , say

the scriptures, fight its undesirable Vâsanâs and purify it.

Purification of the mind is the purpose of all religious discipline.

 

To be concordant with the above purpose of life's journey is what is known

as Dharma. Any action of man which reverberates with this concordance is

called Punya or Merit. To be of use to the rest of the Universe is the

most exalting form of Punya. Any action or thought, on the other hand,

which goes against this concordance, which implies a discordance with

man's evolutionary path to this Realisation, is termed sinful. Extreme

cases of either actions take one to Heaven or Hell, as the case may be,

for a specified period of time after death. But the vast majority of

mankind do neither of these extremes and so are born again on this Earth

to pursue the progress of their own evolution. Even the ones who have to

go to Heaven or Hell have to come back to be born on this Earth after

their specified period of experience is over on the other side of this

world. This is the principle of transmigration of soul from body to body,

death after death. This is a deeply embedded conviction in the Hindu

cultural milieu and forms the structural basis of Hindu religious ethos.

The Divinity inherent in each one of us has a Dharma of its own. It is

to strive to go back to God, from where it came. Every action of ours

must be concordant with this natural order of things. An ideal such

action would be a selfless service to humanity. Every dilemma between

what is right and what is wrong or, what is the same thing, the question

about what one's Dharma is, has to be resolved by testing it on this

touchstone of the natural Dharma of the soul in us. The entire religion of

Hinduism, its theories, its rituals, its philosophies, in fact everything

in the religion is erected on the foundation of these three principles:

namely, The Omnipresence and Omniscience of Divinity; The cultivated

tendencies from birth to birth; and the Swadharma of the soul of Man to

evolve towards Perfection. The recognition that this is so constitutes

the first three Commandments of Hinduism. The remaining seven are, in

some sense, consequences of these three and this part of the logic is the

business of the different schools of philosophy in Hinduism.

 

It is only in the ultimate dirtless crystalline purity of the mind that

one can see God's reflection in oneself. As we attempt to purify our

minds and remove all the accumulated dirt in it, we should simultaneously

take care not to allow further dirt to gather. For this purpose, there

is a powerful but difficult prescription. We are to do all our actions,

secular or religious, private or official, personal or public, in such a

way that no further Vâsanâs adhere to the mind. Act with detachment,

says Hinduism, with no attachment to anything that comes and goes, without

an iota of selfishness, without any hankering or desire for the fruits of

actions. Such actions will not bind the doer. The strategy for such

actions is dedication to the Almighty or to a noble cause. Thus the

fourth commandment is: Act, in the living present, in total detachment

and dedication, by avoiding all egocentric desires, fears and anxieties.

And, if such an action also serves another fellow being, it becomes

Service to God.

 

God is One, though He has many names and forms. That there are several

names and forms should not confuse the seeker. Each name and form is

only a symbol pointing to, or a prop helping us hold on to, the Unique

Unmanifest Almighty. Since God is all-pervading, each name and each form

suits Him. All names and forms are His. Not only that. A seeker can

choose the name and form that matches his taste and evolution and worship

that name and form as the Ultimate Godhead. To be free to find

expression to one's search for a personal God and seek His Grace for the

purification of one's mind is the fifth commandment The validity of this

fifth commandment is the authority for the Hindu conviction that all

religions are only different paths to the same goal of Divine Perfection.

 

 

The sixth principle, the concept of Avatar, is the unique prerogative of

Hinduism among all religions. In the long mythological history of the

Indian nation and also in its historical past, there have been many

occasions when the Absolute Unmanifest Godhead chose to manifest itself in

flesh and blood, as a living presence, for the purpose of either putting

an end to rank cruelty, hatred and wickedness, arrogance of muscle power

or spiritual power or for the purpose of showering Divine Grace on a

superhuman devotee and spreading of the air of spirituality. Each one of

these manifestations is a voluntary and planned descent from the absolute

pedestal of the nameless and formless God. Such a descent, where the

Perfect Godhead assumes an imperfection, as it were, to raise us imperfect

humans towards the path of Perfection, is called an Avatâra. It is only

by God's Grace we may even recognise such an Avatâr. We should feel

honoured and doubly blessed if, in addition, we can enjoy his beatific

presence. To follow the precepts of Avatârs, particularly their

reiteration of the Vedic emphasis on one's duties to one's Mother, Father,

Guru and Spouse, the emphasis on Truth and Love as the basic core of

Dharma and the Unity of all Faiths -- this is the sixth commandment.

 

The seventh commandment prescribes for man one of the time-tested

methodologies of Bhakti. It is in fact an operational plan for a life of

devotion. The principle is that there is no substantive distinction

between the name of God and God Himself. Each name of God, particularly

in the two most ancient languages of the world -- Samskrit and Tamil --

and, in all the Indian languages which have roots in these, is full of

meaning, revealing to us a sample of the majesty and glory of God,

recalling to us His miraculous achievements and reminding us of the

inherent Divinity that we are seeking outside of us instead of deep within

us. So it is prescribed that we go back to the source of all things in

the Universe, by continuously being aware of His omnipresence and by

always keeping His memory as an undercurrent in our subconscious, in all

our thought processes and in all our activities. To keep His name and

memory in the mind and heart is the surest way to purify the mind. To

live, through the memory of God's names, in the ecstasy of the chant of

such names, in continuous awareness of His presence, is the seventh

commandment.

 

What dominates? Man's free will or the Divine Will? This is a question

which every religion has to answer. Hinduism says that every individual

starts his life with certain macro-aspects of his life already chalked out

for him, not by an external force, but by the thoughts and actions of his

own past lives -- in short, by his own evolution, as evidenced by his

store of Vâsanâs. Subject to this each man is enjoined, in his

day-to-day life, to voluntarily discipline himself as per the religious

sanctions, advices and norms. But an intellectual analysis of life's

experience in due time tells him that nothing happens without God's Will

and perhaps even one's own free will is subject to the influence of the

Divine. For most of humanity this however remains only as an ideal.

The Lord's commandment -- which we shall call the eighth commandment --is

: Surrender to Me, in heart and soul, even your will. Then your future,

either here or elsewhere, shall be my concern.

 

All these disciplines will lead us to the ultimate discovery -- revelation

-- of God in ourselves. No external agency can do this for us. We have

to do it ourselves, for ourselves. Discover it as the One Invariant

substratum that never changes while everything else keeps changing.

Discover it as the calm of the deep sea unperturbed by the tumult and

turmoil of the waves on the surface. Discover it as your own

consciousness which is present as the only common factor in all the

different stages of life and in all the states of awareness. Discover

the Ultimate in yourself, for yourself, by yourself. This is a long

process, but never give up. Allow Intuition and Mystic Experience to

take you beyond your Reason and Intellect. This is the ninth commandment.

 

The tenth commandment is the crowning glory of Hinduism. It says, as a

matter of faith, all Faiths are valid; it is the attitude that matters

-- not the rituals, not even the physical expression of the philosophy

that one adheres to. Whatever may be one's path of emphasis, Bhakti,

Karma, Renunciation, Surrender, Detachment, Dedication, Awareness, or

Service, one must remember that it is the attitudes that should be right

rather than any exhibition of intention. It is the attitude that decides

one's evolutionary level called Varna in the scriptures, in the ascent of

Spirit. At the highest level of this evolution one realises that all

religions are true. They are only different routes to the same Divinity.

Hindu religion cannot therefore assume that it is the repository of all

wisdom. Each religion should be understood, appreciated and revered in

its own context, not in comparison with another religion. There should

thus be no hatred, jealousy or distrust of another human being, another

religion, or even within Hinduism, another point of view with respect to

the Ultimate Godhead. As a consequence, the different Hindu philosophies

about the ultimate nature of God, based on differing interpretations of

the Scriuptures, should not matter in one's daily life. It is as if

there exists a multidimensional Reality of which each individual

perception has only an one-dimensional projection before it, and perhaps,

each, in a different dimensional axis. You are free to choose that one

which is appropriate to your taste, evolution, training and tradition.

However, tradition contributes a major factor in your choice, because,

centuries of thinking make history and centuries of history make

tradition.

 

It is not true that every Hindu believes in all the Ten Commandments.

There are Hindus and Hindus. In fact it has been said by critics that

there are as many Hindus as there exist authors who write about Hinduism!

The religion is so flexible that, in fact, for each non-empty subset of

these Ten Commandments, one could find large numbers of adherents in the

Hindu fold, who do not care for, or believe in, the remaining

commandments. Some may even question their validity. They are also

Hindus. For, though there exists many restrictions for a Hindu in the

domain of conduct, in belief there exists almost total freedom. Chart l (

at the end of this Prologue) therefore presents all the Ten Commandments

in a chart form, and Chart 2, on the page thereafter, looks at truncated

charts of the same with one or more Commandments removed and these

represent different categories of Hindus. The thesis of the book is that

a full understanding of Hinduism comes only from an acceptance of all the

Ten Commandments as valid, in theory as well as practice. (From hereon

Advaitins to note that the charts referred to here are not being posted,

because I do not have the patience to learn to know how to post them!)

 

For instance Chart 2 (a) represents one who believes only in Concepts 1

and 9 -- that is, that of Omnipresence of Divinity and that of

Self-Revelation. He believes or cares for nothing else. We may call

this type of Hindu a secular philosopher. For him neither Karma Yoga nor

Bhakti nor surrender theory nor the concept of Avatara have any meaning,

much less, any fascination. On the other hand, we have the orthodox

theologist, almost the ordinary layman-Hindu, who is represented by Chart

2 (b). Except for numbers 9 and 10, everything else makes some vague

sense for him and because of his lack of the understanding of No.10 --

Attitudes -- he is very defensive in his religious bias. Mostly he is

superstitious. He does not have any understanding of the basic

philosophy of the religion and he tends to develop dogmatic attitudes

towards viewpoints which do not coincide with his own perception of

religion. This is the majority. He understands Lord Krishna (that is

what he thinks!), but, of His Gîtâ, he has only a confused perception.

 

Chart 2 © represents the rationalist. Karma Yoga means something to him

but still his ideas are only vague. He appreciates the necessity for the

purification of one's mind and he is all for it. But his attitudes to

many of his co-religionists and their perception of the 'faith' part of

religion are all blurred. To show his confusion with respect to

Commandments 4 and 10, the chart shows these numbers encircled, in his

chart. Everything else in Hinduism, according to him, is either

unimportant, or perhaps, false!

 

As a contrast we have in chart 2 (d) the Scientist-Vedantin. He has a

great fascination for the intellectual exercises embodied in the

philosophical schools of Hinduism, the consequent corollary of a Karma

Yoga and so on. He even starts probing into treatises which deal with

these teachings in their depth. He finds that his non-acceptance of

Nos.6, 7 and 8, namely, Avatara, Surrender theory and the concept of

Nama-smarana, come in the way of his total understanding. He needs

'proof' for all these on the lines of what his scientific mind seems to

be familiar with. The concept of One God with myriads of names and forms

is unpalatable to him even as an academic hypothesis, though he is

prepared to grant them for the purpose of a discussion or a debate

sometimes, but no more than that. He thinks he understands the Gîtâ, but

certainly he cannot swallow the pranks of Krishna! The chart shows all

this. Such a person has a long way to go. Maybe he needs to have a

spiritual shock treatment, before he can accept Nos.6, 7 and 8,.

 

There is another kind of an ordinary Hindu, namely what we may call a

'doubting devotee'. He believes in Nos,.2, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. He is

very pious, in fact so pious that his piety verges on the naive. But he

is not able to fully comprehend the concept of total surrender to the

Lord because every alternate day he discovers that his prayers are not

answered by the Lord. He conveniently forgets that on the other

alternate days his prayers do seem to be answered! So he jumps from one

form of God to another (and Hinduism gives him this flexibility!) and is

carried by naivity to believe in any one who poses the frontal of a

saffron colour. An undercurrent of vacillation and doubt constantly

bothers him. His attitudes naturally don't turn out right though he

thinks the argument about right attitudes is right!

 

Indeed there are many more combinations -- precisely there are a total of

1023 combinations that we can recognise as the ones that characterise

people whom we know. But in the final analysis if one wants to

appreciate, comprehend and visualise the vast panorama of Hinduism in all

its fullness, ONE HAS TO START FROM THE HYPOTHESIS THAT ALL THE TEN

COMMANDMENTS AS DESCRIBED ABOVE ARE VALID. Only with that kind of an

open mind we may hope to have a true and full perception of the complex

way of life called Hinduism.

 

In the rest of the chapters of the book ‘The Ten commandments of

Hinduism’ (in 344 pages) (published in 1994 by New Age International,

4835/24 Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi - If you are interested, you

may write to me personally) we take up these commandments one by one, go

in depth, dissect each into several facets, and attempt to understand the

philosophical and logical thought process that goes to make that

commandment valid as well as the scriptural and other authorities that

support it.

 

The Contents page is reproduced below

Prologue

1. Omnipresent Divinity

1.1 Upanishads and the common man

1.2 Solar Energy - Flashes from a chapter of the Yajurveda

 

2. Empire of the Mind

2.1 Will-power

2.2 Three modes of behaviour

 

3. Concordance with Self is Dharma

3.1 Rama Gita - A Sermon from the Ramayana

3.2 Vedanta for Dhritarashtra - An episode from the mahabharata

 

4. Detachment, Dedication and Service

4.1 Technique of Karma Yoga - yajna

4.2 Attitude of Detachment and Renunciation

 

5. One Godhead

5.1 Idol Worship

5.2 Lotus Feet of God, Dust of the Divine Feet and Sandals of Divinity

 

6. Phenomenon of Avatara

6.1 Mother Goddess

6.2 Science and Spirituality

6.3 Devotees and Avatars

 

7. Recitation of God’s names

7.1 One Thousand names of the Lord - Meaning and Significance

7.2 Faith par excellence - Prahlada

7.3 Lessons from Ajamila’s story - An episode from the bhagavatam

 

8. Surrender to God within

8.1 Fate versus Free will

8.2 Surrender to the Lord What, Why and How?

 

9. Ideal of Self-Revelation

9.1 Sankara and Advaita

9.2 That art Thou

9.3 Advaita bhakti

9.4 Prakriti or Cosmic energy in the bhagavad-gita

9.5 Science meets Vedanta in Raja Yoga

 

10. B eyond, Ritual, Religion and Philosophy

10.1 Life and Message of Ramanuja

10.2 Jnani’s Devotion and Devotee’s Jnana - Gita, ch.18

10.3 Isavasya Upanishad - the first and last word

 

Epilogue

 

Pranams to all advaitin-seekers

Prof. VK

 

===

Prof. V. Krishnamurthy

You are invited to visit my latest book entitled GEMS FROM THE OCEAN OF HINDU

THOUGHT VISION AND PRACTICE at

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/2952/gohitvip/contents.html

___________

 

Free instant messaging and more at http://messenger.