What is Hinduism for Me?

In Vedanta, which is the crest jewel of Hindu philosophy, the highest ideal is self-realisation.This involves joining the spark of divinity within us, the atman, with the divinity that pervades the entire universe, the Brahmn.

There are many methodologies for achieving this, classed under the generic term yoga,A word from the same root as the English word yoke, and involves joining the atman and the Brahmn or, in Semitic terms, God Immanent and God Transcendent.

There are four main paths of yoga-jnana yoga, the way of wisdom; bhakti yoga, the way of devotion; karma yoga, the way of dedicated work and raja yoga, the way of psycho-spiritual practice.

While there are hundreds of different paths to the divine, the Rig Veda says:
”The truth is one, the wise call it by many names.” The Upanishads in particular are the pre-eminent structures in Hinduism because they contain illuminating expressions of multifaceted truths by realized souls, the rishis. These verses are full of ecstatic glimpses into the divine, about Self-Realisation.

One short piece, the wisdom of Shandilya, From the Chandogya Upanishad brings out the essence of self-realisation:”This universe comes forth from Brahmn. Verily all is Brahmn.”

It goes on to say.” A person is what his deep desire is. It is our deepest desire in this life that shapes the life to come. So let us direct our deepest desires to realize the self.

“The self, that can be realized by the pure in heart, is life, light, space, gives rise to all works,desires,odours and all tastes, is beyond words, is joy abiding. This is the self dwelling in my heart.

“Smaller than a grain of rice, smaller than a grain of barley, smaller than a mustard seed, smaller that the kernel of a grain of millet is the self. This is the self dwelling in my heart, greater than the earth, greater than the sky, greater than all the worlds,

“This self that gives rise to all works, desires, odours.and all tastes, pervades the universe, is beyond words, is joy abiding, is ever present in my heart, is Brahmn indeed. To him I shall attain when my ego dies. So said Shandilya, so said Shandilya”.
As the self resides in all beings, there is really no scope in Vedanta for discrimination on the basis of birthplace, religion, caste, classs, gender or economic status. True, such discrimination based on an inequitable caste hierarchy has been part of Hindu society for centuries, but all Hindu reformers and spiritual leaders have roundly condemned such restrictive practice. Whether it was Raja Rammohan Roy in Bengal, Ranade and Bhandarkar in Maharashtra, or Swami Dayanand Saraswati in Punjab, They all sought to remove the restrictive aspects of Hindu society to return to the principles of Vedanta.

Vivekananda and his brother monks Ramana Maharshi and Aurobindo had no room in their soaring philosophies for the ridiculous taboos based on caste discrimination. Indeed, in the global society towards which we hurtling astride the irreversible arrow of time, what is needed is an inclusive philosophy that cuts across all the artificial barriers that divide human beings and prevent them from becoming what the Vedanta calls the world as family –“Vasudhaiva kutumbakam”.

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