Comparing Christianity & Hinduism, Peter Kreeft

[Guest guest]

" There are two basic kinds of religions in the world: Eastern and

Western.

 

The main differences between Hinduism and Christianity are typical of

the differences between Eastern and Western religions in general.

Here are some examples:

 

Hinduism is pantheistic, not theistic. The doctrine that God created

the world out of nothing rather than emanating it out of His own

substance or merely shaping some pre-existing material is an idea

that simply never occurred to anyone but the Jews and those who

learned it from them. Everyone else either thought of the gods as

part of the world (paganism) or the world as part of God (pantheism).

 

If God is in everything, God is in both good and evil. But then there

is no absolute morality, no divine law, no divine will discriminating

good and evil. In Hinduism, morality is practical; its end is to

purify the soul from desires so that it can attain mystical

consciousness. Again, the Jews are unique in identifying the source

of morality with the object of religion. Everyone has two innate

senses: the religious sense to worship, and the moral sense of

conscience; but only the Jewish God is the focus of both. Only the

God of the Bible is absolutely righteous.

 

Eastern religions come from private mystical experiences; Western

religions come from public revelations recorded in a book and

summarized in a creed. In the East, human experience validates the

Scriptures; in the West, Scripture judges experience.

 

Eastern religions are esoteric, understandable only from within by

the few who share the experience. Western religions are esoteric,

public, democratic, open to all. In Hinduism there are many levels of

truth: polytheism, sacred cows and reincarnation for the masses;

monotheism (or monism) for the mystics, who declare the individual

soul one with Brahman (God) and beyond reincarnation ( " Brahman is

the only reincarnator " ). Truth is relative to the level of

experience.

 

Individuality is illusion according to Eastern mysticism. Not that

we're not real, but that we are not distinct from God or each other.

Christianity tells you to love your neighbors; Hinduism tells you you

are your neighbors. The word spoken by God Himself as His own

essential name, the word " I, " is the ultimate illusion, not

the ultimate reality, according to the East. There Is no separate

ego. All is one.

 

Since individuality is illusion, so is free will. If free will is

illusion, so is sin. And if sin is illusion, so is hell. Perhaps the

strongest attraction of Eastern religions is in their denial of sin,

guilt and hell.

 

Thus the two essential points of Christianity — sin and salvation

— are both missing in the East. If there is no sin, no salvation

is needed, only enlightenment. We need not be born again; rather, we

must merely wake up to our innate divinity. If I am part of God. I

can never really be alienated from God by sin.

 

Body, matter, history and time itself are not independently real,

according to Hinduism. Mystical experience lifts the spirit out of

time and the world. In contrast, Judaism and Christianity are

essentially news, events in time: creation, providence, prophets,

Messiah, incarnation, death and, resurrection, ascension, second

coming. Incarnation and New Birth are eternity dramatically entering

time. Eastern religions are not dramatic.

 

The ultimate Hindu ideal is not sanctity but mysticism. Sanctity is

fundamentally a matter of the will: willing God's will, loving God

and neighbor. Mysticism is fundamentally a matter of intellect,

intuition, consciousness. This fits the Eastern picture of God as

consciousness — not will, not lawgiver.

 

When C.S. Lewis was converted from atheism, he shopped around in the

world's religious supermarket and narrowed his choice down to

Hinduism or Christianity. Religions are like soups, he said. Some,

like consomme, are thin and clear (Unitarianism, Confucianism, modern

Judaism); others, like minestrone, are thick and dark (paganism,

" mystery religions " ). Only Hinduism and Christianity are both

" thin " (philosophical) and " thick " (sacramental and

mysterious). But Hinduism is really two religions: " thick "

for the masses, " thin " for the sages. Only Christianity is

both.

 

Hinduism claims that all other religions are yogas: ways, deeds,

paths. Christianity is a form of bhakti yoga (yoga for emotional

types and lovers). There is also jnana yoga (yoga for intellectuals),

raja yoga (yoga for experimenters), karma yoga (yoga for workers,

practical people) and hatha yoga (the physical preliminary to the

other four). For Hindus, religions are human roads up the divine

mountain to enlightenment — religion is relative to human need;

there is no " one way " or single objective truth.

 

There is, however, a universal subjective truth about human nature:

It has " four wants " : pleasure, power, altruism and

enlightenment. Hinduism encourages us to try all four paths,

confident that only the fourth brings fulfillment. If there is

reincarnation and if there is no hell, Hindus can afford to be

patient and to learn the long, hard way: by experience rather than by

faith and revelation.

 

Hindus are hard to dialogue with for the opposite reason Moslems are:

Moslems are very intolerant, Hindus are very tolerant. Nothing is

false; everything is true in a way.

 

The summit of Hinduism is the mystical experience, called mukti, or

moksha: " liberation " from the illusion of finitude,

realization that tat tvam asi, " thou art That (Brahman]. " At

the center of your being is not individual ego but Atman, universal

self which is identical with Brahman, the All.

 

This sounds like the most absurd and blasphemous thing one could say:

that I am God. But it is not that I, John Smith, am God the Father

Almighty. Atman is not ego and Brahman is not God the Father.

Hinduism identifies not the immanent human self with the transcendent

divine self but the transcendent human self with the immanent divine

self. It is not Christianity. But neither is it idiocy.

 

Martin Buber, in " I and Thou, " suggests that Hindu mysticism

is the profound experience of the " original pre-biographical

unity " of the self, beneath all forms and contents brought to it

by experience, but confused with God. Even Aristotle said that

" the soul is, in a way, all things. " Hinduism construes this

" way " as identity, or inclusion, rather than knowing: being

all things substantially rather than mentally. The soul is a mirror

for the whole world. "

 

Comparing Christianity & Hinduism, Peter Kreeft

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0008.html

[Guest guest]

shriadishakti , " jagbir singh "

<adishakti_org> wrote:

>

> Hindus are hard to dialogue with for the opposite reason Moslems

> are: Moslems are very intolerant, Hindus are very tolerant. Nothing

> is false; everything is true in a way.

>

 

The foundation of Hindu ethics is the Vedic teaching that God

(Brahman) and the indwelling Self of man are one and the same. Behind

the psychophysical man is the Self, which is divine. Ayam atma Brahma-

" This Self is Brahman, " is a fundamental teaching of the Hindu

scriptures.

 

The Self forms the very core of man's being. It is different from his

physical body, vital energy, senses and mind. Man's ego is not this

Self. The ego or I-ness is an idea only; it is purely mental. Being

mental, it cannot be the Self. This Self of man is called Atman in

Sanskrit.

 

If Brahman is compared to an infinite ocean, then Atman is a wave in

it. The ocean is never different from its waves, and the waves are

never different from the ocean. They are one and the same. Thus,

Brahman and Atman are one and the same. It is Atman which has become

the manifold universe. If I hurt anyone, I actually hurt myself.

Therefore, I must not hurt anyone. This realization is the basis of

Hindu ethics.

 

The Isha Upanishad says very beautifully, " He who sees all beings in

the Self, and the Self in all beings, hates no one. " It is possible

for us to hate others only when that awareness of unity is not there.

Our awareness of the presence of the Self in all makes everyone dear

to us. The spiritual goal of Hinduism is to experience this divine

Self within and without.

 

Excerpted The Essentials of Hinduism by Swami Bhaskarananda