Why is that in Hinduism’s doctrine(particularly Shaivism), asserts the presence of God in every living and non-living beings? Why is that Hinduism believes in reincarnation so inexorably and what is the significance behind that concept?And last but not least, the most intriguing question of all, how humans are created according to Hinduism, with reference to Shaivism . In answering these questions, I am not going to treat them individually, but rather provide explanation by treating them as a whole.
Before, I venture into the explanation, allow me to enlighten you guys with some other detail.In actual fact, Hinduism is not Hinduism at all, but its real name is Sanadhana Dharma which literally means the ‘eternal values’. Since, the values that we are speaking about is not transcient but eternal,so one could say that Sanadhana Dharma@Hinduism does not have a begining nor an end. As a matter of fact, Hinduism is a kind of teaching that emphasizes universal truth through self realization and it by its own virtue, not a religion at all. That is the very reason why, there is no perfect boundary of how would you classify a person of being a Hindu, and also no such thing as converting into Hinduism. This is simply because Hinduism, is said to be ubiquitous. The second thing that I would like to highlight here, is on the type of belief that we Hindus generally have. Many have been mistaken to assume that Hindus believe in many Gods. This is not true.Hinduism is not polytheistic but it is monotheistic. The forms of many God that you might have seen or come across with, are just expressions of different aspects of God that Hindus believe in. The rational behind this is very simple indeed; A wholesome devotion is only possible if you truly understand what you are believing in.Understanding on the other hand, requires an elucidated explanation of each behaviour of the God, since even humans are said to be intricatingly complex in terms of behaviourism. Besides that, it is also to give the devoties the liberty of choosing an image that he or she truely feels united with.Hinduism is also pantheistic. The reason for this claim, will be elaborated in the following passages. The concepts in Hinduism is so enriched and sophisicated, that it requires a step by step approach to fully comprehend the essence and since it might take years doing so, below is just a quick glimpse of what it is.
Pantheism is the belief held by people that God is in every block of living and non living matter.This sort of belief can be said an anchor in illustrating the other complex concepts in Hinduism. Based on Hinduism, humans are said to go through a cycle of life whereby the cycle has two repetitive phases and these two phases will but put into an end by the ultimate phase. The two preceding ones are mass energy/ body mass/ physical state and your soul(yes, Hindus totally believe in the existence of souls or commonly referred as Athma in the language itself). The ultimate phase and the one believed to be the paramount of all, is moksha(it is said to be the state in which you become united with God and freed from the cycle of birth). This basic concept led to the belief in reincarnations. Even in the sacred text of Hinduism, it has been explicitly stated that life evolved in Earth. At first, as we all know, there were these single cell organisms, and then life subsequently evolved into a more complex multicellular beings and right now we humans are said to be at the pinnacle of evolution, which is inevitably true, and the reasons are coming up in my following sentences. The celebrated theory of evolution initiated by Charles Darwin has provided very concrete and convincing case for the reasons of why evolution takes place,and it is untill now appears to be the most plausible answer(survival of the fittest and natural selection). In Hinduism however, we have a rather denonative meaning behind it. In the whole universe, there are only two things which are eternal or ever lasting; God and the soul within you. In each birth and reincarnation, the soul can be visualised as being inside a container of boiling water because the soul is said to be in a desperate search for a way to get back to the Source, which happens to be the God.Until then, there would be any body masses exchanged throughout the process and evolution progressively takes place because there happens to be a need for a much efficient way of doing it. After many many series of such evolution, humans seem to be the best fitted one for the task. This is because, a return to the source, will only be possible if the inner soul is post mortemed to the finest degree, in this case the soul. The other term of this, is self realization. Humans with an heightened ability to fully exploit their intelligence, have come up with various way of doing so, one of which is meditation.( the precambrian organisms could not achieve this feat because their limited and relatively simple bodily system do not require a large capacity of the brain. Evolution primarily took place to subliminally achieve a threshold intelligence so that this could be attained).
So, in a nutshell, reincarnation is a struggle of the soul to return to the source and will only cease once moksha is obtained.
The marked difference between Hinduism aand Islam is about the space in which the God is contained. Islam says, “ Everything is God’s “ .....whereas in Hinduism, it is believed that “ Everything is God”..... The only difference in both the sentences is the apostrophy ‘s’ , but...as you can see, this small difference yields two diverging concepts. Let’s look into the view of the Hindus.
As I said before, there are two eternal entities namely God and the Soul. The reason why soul is considered to be eternal is because its origin itself. A soul could be pictured as a fragmented piece of the infinitesimally fraction of the God’s thought or God himself. This is the essence of life. This maybe the rational of why babies are quiet oftenly compared with the purity of God, because at this point of life( infancy), the soul is still untarnished and therefore comparable to God. But the happenings or the event in the subsequent part of life, are the deteriorating factors of the soul, and therefore the soul loses its sanctity and eventually its true identity( the person is barred from looking into as desires develop). What is the true identity then ??? The quest to find this identity of the soul, is what commonly known as ‘ achieving moksha’. To achieve this task, as I said before, one will have to transcendent worldy thoughts and achieve the initial soul’s transparency..............
So, what happens when the person achieves moksha???......The soul will be reunited with the source as in the God.....or in another words, collectively these fragmented souls will coalesce and rejoin the God and therefore, at this moment, the enlightened soul becomes the God himself....So, the astonishing truth is, everyone and everthing is God....
Recently, I had one of my friend asking me ,what is the point of the soul’s disunion and subsequent consolidation and the reunion? This is a fair question to be asked, I mean, why this such troubling method......To explain this , let’s look at a very simple anology(it may seem lame, but good enough to give a vague idea of why these things happen).
1. Just imagine that the God is a 5 year old kid in a dark room. The room has no entrances nor exits.
2. The small boy wakes up, and switches on the light. He then walks a box containing all his toys, and then he empties the content on the floor.
3. He then, starts playing with his small soldiers figure by arranging them everywhere and making up an imaginative story in his on mind. He continues playing the rest of the day.
4. Then, when he feels tired, he keeps all the toys back into the box, switches of the light and goes to sleep.
5. He then repeats the routine on a daily basis.
The small kid is God. He lives in the room by himself. Although some may be taken aback by the concept of God creations as a past time, there is no other way of putting it better. This analogy is just for those who doubts the existence of God, since if they can be so critical about God, the analogy can be as critical and practical as they can be..I mean ...who LOVE boredom....no one and God is included. But however, for those friends who fully understand things, the truth is that, this cycle of reunion and dissociation is never-ending, and it is the way it is because it is suppose to be in that way.An end has to be put when (judgement day)..when there is moral degradation so serious that there are no chances of repenting, then, God interferes to make things right, through what I would say...... REFINEMENT...
