© 1995 The Brotherhood of Man Library
“All Urantia is waiting for the proclamation of the ennobling message of Michael, unencumbered by the accumulated doctrines and dogmas of nineteen centuries of contact with the religions of evolutionary origin. The hour is striking for presenting to Buddhism, to Christianity, to Hinduism, even to the peoples of all faiths, not the gospel about Jesus, but the living, spiritual reality of the gospel of Jesus.” (UB 94:12.7)
And how difficult would it be to present such a reality to Hinduism, a religion which believes in reincarnation and karma? It appears perhaps not as formidable a task as might appear at first glance for Hinduism, “has proved to be the most adaptive, amorphic religion to appear on Urantia. It is capable of almost unlimited change and possesses an unusual range of flexible adjustment from the high and semimonotheistic speculations of the intellectual Brahman to the arrant fetishism and primitive cult practices of the debased and depressed classes of ignorant believers.” (UB 94:4.8)
Hindu theology, at present, depicts four descending levels of deity and divinity:
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The Brahman, the Absolute, the Infinite One, the IT IS.
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The Trimurti, the supreme trinity of Hinduism. In this association Brahma, the first member, is conceived as being self-created out of the Brahman—infinity. Were it not for close identification with the pantheistic Infinite One, Brahma could constitute the foundation for a concept of the Universal Father. Brahma is also identified with fate. The worship of the second and third members, Siva and Vishnu, arose in the first millennium after Christ. Siva is lord of life and death, god of fertility, and master of destruction. Vishnu is extremely popular due to the belief that he periodically incarnates in human form (Gautama Buddha and even Christ himself being claimed as incarnations of Vishnu.). In this way, Vishnu becomes real and living in the imaginations of the Indians. Siva and Vishnu are each regarded by some as supreme over all.
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Vedic and post-Vedic deities. Many of the ancient gods of the Aryans, such as Agni, Indra, Soma, have persisted as secondary to the three members of the Trimurti. Numerous additional gods have arisen since the early days of Vedic India, and these have also been incorporated into the Hindu pantheon.
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The demigods: supermen, semigods, heroes, demons, ghosts, evil spirits, sprites, monsters, goblins, and saints of the later-day cults. (UB 94:4.7)
Huston Smith (1965) in “The Religions of Man,” notes that the fact that Hinduism has shared her land for centuries with Parsees, Buddhists, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians may help explain an idea that comes out more clearly through her than through any other leading contemporary religion; namely, her conviction that the various major religions are alternate and relatively equal paths to the same God. “To claim salvation as the monopoly of any one religion is like claiming that God can be found in this room but not the next. Normally each individual will take the path which leads up life’s mountain from his own culture; those who circle the mountain trying to bring others around to their paths are not climbing. In practice India’s sects have often been fanatically intolerant, but in principle they have remained notably open. The Vedas early announce Hinduism’s classic contention: the various religions are but the different languages through which God has spoken to the human heart. Truth is one: sages call it by different names.”
It is possible to climb life’s mountain from any side, but when the top is reached the pathways merge. As long as religions remain in the foothills of theology, ritual, or organization, they may be far apart. Differences in culture, history, geography, and group temperament all make for different starting points. “How artistic,” writes a contemporary Hindu, “that there should be room for such variety—how rich the texture is, and how much more interesting than if the Almighty had decreed one antiseptically safe, exclusive, orthodox way. Although he is Unity, God finds, its seems, his recreation in variety.” But the goal beyond these differences is the same goal.
In response to the question, “What kind of world do we have?” Hinduism answers:
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A multiple world that includes innumerable galaxies horizontally, innumerable tiers vertically, and innumerable cycles temporally.
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A moral world in which the law of karma never wavers. As a doctrine karma means, roughly, the moral law of cause and effect. In India the concept of moral law is seen as absolutely binding and brooking no exceptions. The present condition of each individual’s interior life—how happy he is, how confused or serene, how much he can see—is an exact product of what he has wanted and got in the past; and equally, his present thoughts and decisions are determining his future status. Each act he directs upon the world has its equal and opposite reaction on himself. Each thought and deed delivers an unseen chisel blow toward the sculpturing of his destiny.
The idea of karma and the completely moral universe it implies carries two important psychological corollaries. First it commits the Hindu who understands it to complete personal responsibility, and it also closes the door to all appeals to chance or accident. How many persons drift through life simply waiting for the breaks, for that breathless moment when his name will be called to fame and prosperity no more through merit than when a name is selected for a quiz program. If you approach life this way, says Hinduism, you misjudge your position pathetically. Breaks have nothing to do with protracted levels of happiness, and even so do not happen by chance. We live in a world in which there is no chance or accident; the words are simply covers for ignorance.
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A middle world that will never in itself replace the supreme (the Trinity?) as destination for the human spirit.
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A world that is maya, deceptively tricky in that it passes off its multiplicity, materiality and welter of dualities as ultimate whereas these are in fact provisional only. The trick lies in the way the world’s materiality and multiplicity pass themselves off for being independently real apart from the state of mind from which they are seen. Reality in itself is actually undifferentiated Brahman throughout, as a rope lying in the dust remains a rope even while it is mistaken for a snake.
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A training ground that can advance man toward the Highest.
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A world that is lila, the play of the divine in its cosmic dance, untiring, unending, resistless but ultimately gentle, with a grace born of infinite vitality.
The beauty and truth of Hinduism’s teachings were captured by Jesus and Ganid in their choice of quotations from the Hindu literature. (see UB 131:4.1)
¶ References
- Huston Smith, “The Religions of Man”. (Harper and Row, N.Y. 1965)
¶ External links
- Article in Innerface International: https://urantia-book.org/archive/newsletters/innerface/vol2_5/page10.html