Understanding Islam

In the troubled times of terrorism and war in the Middle East, Syria and Afghanistan, Boko Haram in Africa and troubles between Israel and Hamas in Palestine region, and the escalating war like situation in Gulf of Hormuz near Iran in Persian Gulf, it is necessary that we have an understanding of Islam, in the name of which Muslims in these areas are fighting the West and their allies in one way or the other. Is it a clash between Christianity and Islam or just the avarice of the Western countries to exploit the oil reserves in these areas or is it the desire of Muslims to be the leaders of the world, ruling over every one? Whatever that may be, it is better that we know about Islam.

Today as of 2015, Muslims are 24.1% of the world population, 1.8 billion of the 7.3 billion people; out of this 80%, 1.5 billion are Sunnis and 20%, 340 million are Shia Muslims. Islam was founded by Prophet Muhammad, an Arab and it spread to the world. Arabs are the descendants of Ishmael, son of Abraham from Hagar, the Egyptian maid of Abraham’s wife Sarah, whom he married as Sarah as of that time was barren. When Ishmael was 12 years old, Sarah gave birth to Isaac, the son of promise to Abraham and Hagar and Ishmael were cast out as they were found to be antagonistic to Isaac.[1]

The main tenets of Islam are there is one god, and his name is Allah; Muhammad is his prophet. It is a strict monotheism, for God is no Father, neither has he a Son. Allah is merciful and compassionate; he will judge the people in the last day when all the dead will be resurrected, based on the good deeds they have done on earth and they will either be sent to heaven or consigned to hell. Islam encourages charity, especially to their own community.

Muhammad, the founder of Islam was born in Mecca in 570 AD; his father died even before his birth and his mother died when he was six years old. He became an orphan and was brought up by his grandfather and uncle. As a young teenage boy he used to accompany his uncle’s caravans to Syria on trade. He earned a name as a good and hard working boy, honest in his dealings and reliable. He started to work for a rich widow, Khadija, who observing his good qualities, married him, though she was 15 years older than him. They had many children but only one girl Fatima survived and she will later marry Ali, Muhammad’s cousin.

Muhammad was in the habit of retiring to caves for meditation. Once when he was in a cave in Mount Jabel al Nour, he was accosted by a spirit, called Namus, which shook him and forced him to take down what the spirit was saying. Muhammad was 40 years old at that time in AD 610, and in fear and in confusion he tried to commit suicide. But he was stopped by the spirit who assured him that he was Gabriel, the archangel. Thereon intermittently the revelation continued, for the next 23 years, which is said to constitute the Quran.

Growth of Islam in Arabia was phenomenal. The first to believe Muhammad was his wife Khadija, his cousin Ali and friend Abu Baker. Since AD 613 Muhammad started to preach his religion, preaching against idolatry and polytheism. The tribal leaders in Mecca were afraid that their livelihood will be endangered, for the town received regular pilgrims to worship the black stone, Kaaba, which had some 360 idols attached to it. As they planned to kill him, he ran away to Medina in AD 622. He got a following in Medina and after series of battles with Mecca, the Medina people, the followers of Muhammad won and he entered in triumph Mecca and demolished the idols associated with Kaaba and cleared the area.

By AD 630, the whole of Arabia was consolidated under the control of Muhammad. He is said to have fought some 56 battles around this time. He died in AD 632, poisoned by a Jewish woman who had been taken as a slave in one of his raids.

The story of Islam sweeping over the entire Middle East up to Indonesia in the east and up to Spain in the west is remarkable. After the death of Muhammad, the community elected Abu Baker as the next leader; but others wished to have Ali as the leader since he was the closest kin of Muhammad. Finally a group of four men were made to rule, Ali, Abu Baker, Uthman and Umar. This arrangement lasted less than 30 years for in AD 661 Ali was murdered and Umayyads took over the reign, with Syria as their capital. This was the starting of the major split among Muslims, Ali’s followers being Shias and the rest of them being Sunnis. By this time they had conquered Palestine, Israel, Syria and other nearby areas.

In AD 750, Ummayads were toppled by Abbasids and they ruled with Baghdad as the capital. The two major empires of the world at this time, the Roman Empire and Persian Empire had fought each other for supremacy and exhausted themselves and the Muslims almost walked over unopposed.[2] Byzantium survived till AD 1453, when Ottomans conquered them and ruled till the First World War in AD 1915. Today Muslims are in majority in almost 50 countries of the world, the whole of Central Asia, Indonesia, Middle East, Northern Africa are in their hands. In India a large population of Muslims live.

Important pointers as far as Christianity is concerned, Muslims respect Jesus Christ as a prophet of God, but not as Son of God or God. The concept of Trinity they do not accept. Their arguments against Christianity are threefold: God is not a Father; if Jesus is the Son, they ask where is God’s wife? They are sure Jesus did not die on the cross nor did he resurrect on the third day. Finally they argue that Jesus never claimed to be God.

Christians when they address Jesus Christ as Son of God do not mean God married a wife and gave birth to a Son by biological means.[3] God exists in three forms, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, the Trinity. All the three are of the same substance but are three individual beings.

That Jesus died on the cross as a substitute sacrifice for the sins of all of us, and that he was buried and rose again on the third day is the crux of Christian belief.[4] This the Muslims deny. They have two theories to explain how Jesus did not die on the cross. One, it only looked as if Jesus died on the cross, but God replaced someone else in his place in the last minute and took Jesus away to heaven before crucifixion. This is called the substitution theory. Why would God play this substitution game and fool a major religion into believing a fallacy as truth is known only to Muslims! God was offering Jesus as a Lamb of sacrifice to save the sinners, and if that is how He has planned to save the world, who are we to say that He did not do it?

The other theory claims Jesus only fainted on the cross and did not die; when he was kept in the tomb, because of the cool atmosphere inside and with the help of his disciples, he revived and walked away. This is called the swoon theory. Is it possible for any man to walk away after the whipping and nailing on the wrists and feet, and hanging on the cross for three hours? This our Muslim friends alone know! Moreover where did he go after reviving? That also Muslims alone know! This is a physical and medical impossibility and moreover the tomb was sealed by the soldiers of Pilate, the Governor of the time and there was no way Jesus’ disciples could have gone anywhere near the tomb.

We must also remember that Islam came 600 years after Christ’s death, and resurrection, which were recorded within 15-20 years of his crucifixion by eyewitnesses. Which one do we believe, the narration of those who personally saw the whole events and wrote about it within 15-20 years or something written after 600 years? Our Muslim friends need to take a call on that. Moreover after the second century AD, about almost 100 years after crucifixion, such theories that Jesus did not die on the cross and God took him away started to circulate. 500 years after that Muslims base their belief on such heretical and spurious writings. People have to be wise here.  

Jesus claimed that he is God when he made “I AM” statements recorded in the Gospel of John. At the time of his trial the High Priest asked Jesus, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus answered “I am. And you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” Based on this the high priest declares that this is blasphemy, and that he should be killed.[5] Early enough he tried not to spread this news, lest the authorities kill him early on itself.

Muslims argue that Muhammad has been prophesied in the Bible! They quote Deuteronomy 18:18-19 where Moses tells Israel people that God will raise a Prophet like him from among their brethren and that they should listen to him. This prophet that is mentioned is the Messiah, Christ who will arise from among the Jews. It is definitely not Prophet Muhammad as claimed by Muslims. Deuteronomy was written after the Hebrews, the twelve tribes of Jacob, returned from slavery in Egypt and not in the time of Isaac and Ishmael. To interpret it wrongly and twist its meaning is of no credit to the Muslims!

Secondly the Muslims claim that the Helper whom Jesus promised to send once he leaves the earth, in John 16:7 is Muhammad! This is cherry-picking from Bible, that too when Muslims do not believe the other things written in the very same Bible! From John 14:16 on, John clarifies that this Helper is the Holy Spirit, who will come and reside in the believers and help them to live a life pleasing to the Lord. It is definitely not Muhammad.

The biography of Muhammad was written after almost 150 years of his death by one Ibn Ishag, but was lost and edited twice before releasing. Compare this with the Gospels written within 15-20 years of the crucifixion of Christ! Quran itself was consolidated and written some 200 years after the death of Muhammad. Some 80 odd versions of it were circulating when Utman, the third Caliph in AD 644 recalled all these, burnt them and issued an official standardised version of Quran. Such a thing never happened with New Testament of the Bible, because for three centuries Christians were not under a single person’s rule. Only when Constantine, the Roman Emperor, became a Christian in AD 337, he could have done it, but there are no records of him or anybody else doing it. The copies of the New Testament would have run into millions in the three hundred years! Moreover the Quran as we have today was brought out only in 1924!

Last few facts on Muhammad, the Prophet. He was helpful and compassionate, especially to his own people, but was merciless in war. Once he ordered the beheading of 900 captured men. He permitted his men to rape the captured women, kill the men and teenage boys, but keep the women and small children to be sold as slaves. He emphasised that to kill an ‘infidel,’ that is ‘unbeliever’ is pleasing to Allah and is the duty of every Muslim. Surah 9:5 says ‘fight and kill infidels wherever you see them.’ Actually Islam is not a religion of peace, it means “Submission,” submission to what is written in Quran, which itself is telling them to kill all unbelievers, unless they convert or pay the special tax.

The sayings of Muhammad, hadith, are again not from him in totality. In AD 830 one Al Bukhari collected some 6,00,000 supposed sayings of Prophet Muhammad that were circulating. He then rejected all but 7275 and these he issued as the hadith, on which the Muslims rely as if it is God’s word.

Muhammad the Prophet in his personal life was not above board. He had 18 wives and married the 9 year old Aisha when he was 52 years old and consummated that marriage. He allowed temporary marriages, which is nothing but prostitution. In India too we have heard rich Arab Muslims coming and marrying girls for three months and then leaving them with a simple talak, talak, talak. In Iran, a Muslim country, this practice is still prevalent. Where is the morality in all these? Our Muslim friends need to think it over.

Jesus Christ in comparison was pure and never participated in any war or killed people. He helped people, fed them, healed the blind and the deaf, made the lame to walk, and raise the dead, when he lived on earth. He offered himself to be killed voluntarily as a sacrifice to bear the sins of the world. In doing so, he did not rule the world, but saved the world.  Praise be to Him. Our Muslim friends will have to assess and see who is truthful, Jesus or Muhammad and decide. These are the last times we are living in. Not much time is left before Christ returns, when we will have to give an account of our faith and deeds. We all need wisdom here.

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[1] Genesis 16:1, 2, 15; 21:3, 9, 10, 14

[2] Tom Holland, In the Shadow of the Sword: The Battle for Global Empire and the end of the Ancient World, 2012

[3] In today’s scientific development man is making babies outside the womb and cloning them as well! So is it very difficult for God to make a baby without a biological father? Funnily, Muslims accept virgin birth of Jesus!

[4] 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

[5] Mark 14:61-62, 63-64

The Problem of Pain

Every one of us is familiar with pain in this life. There is not one who is not affected by its toxic tentacles. The basic question in problem of pain is, why does a good and benevolent God allow pain in this world? Is it because He is good but powerless against evil? Or is it that He is not good but evil? Or is it that He does not care? If God is not omnipotent or not good, then He is not worthy of worship. This in nut shell is the problem of pain.

This question of pain and suffering in the world moved Gautama Buddha to renounce his life as a prince and go in search of an answer to this problem. What he found led to Buddhism, its basic tenet being, desire is the root cause of pain in the world and that in removing this desire one gets liberation. The kshatrya princes of yester years in India meditated on this problem and came up with the principles enunciated in Upanishads, that a good man suffers in this life because of the accumulated sins he had committed in the previous lives; it is basically the bad karma from his previous births that have come to haunt him in this life, an understanding that gave rise to Karma theory and reincarnation or repeated cycle of births and deaths. These are not satisfactory explanations and there is no evidence to show that killing desires or suppressing them will liberate a person from pain or that a cycle of previous lives exist.

How does the Bible, the Scriptures of Christians, deal with this question of pain? What is the explanation provided there? The very first chapter of Genesis, the first book in the Bible deals with the creation of this world and all that is in it, including man. It shows God as all powerful, pure and good, who after each creation affirmed what he created, was good. He made man and woman in His own image, in the image of God – with all His attributes and powers and eternal life. “God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.”[1] So how did evil enter in this beautiful world of God?

The serpent, a cunning personification of Satan, Evil, tempted the woman by offering an incentive to disobey God’s one commandment to the ancient pair, not to eat the fruit of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. The incentive was they will be like gods if they ate the fruit. Eve ruminates the thought in her mind, evaluating the proposition, and adduces reasons why she and her husband could eat that forbidden fruit. The tree was good for food, it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree desirable to make one wise. After reasoning thus, weighing the pros and cons she eats the fruit and gave it to her husband. who was there by her side and he also ate it. It was a willful disobedience. Then their eyes were opened and they could know good and the evil. A couple who knew only good and nothing about evil, now knew about evil and thus evil entered the world, pain, suffering and eventually death entered in its wake.

Now, for some of the questions, asked by the skeptics. They ask, it was after all an apple that she ate; was it such a big crime that God should punish the whole human race to suffering and death? It was not just an apple that she ate that caused all these. She and her husband chose to defy God, and His commandment, due to the desire to be like God. That was a red alert and a banner of revolt. They did not want to be under the control of God, but be independent and masters of their own fate. It is very like the rebellion of a teenager, who defies his parents saying, “This is my life; I will do whatever I want with it.” That is a serious threat to parental authority; so also here. God had to deal with it severely, lest it goes out of hand.

Then they ask, for one person’s mistake or sin, why the whole human race should be punished? Well, in modern days everyone is familiar with DNA and how genes pass on the parental characters to their offspring and so on down to the generations. We also know about mutations that occur, which being in changes in the DNA, which are then passed on to their generations. Is it very difficult to imagine that when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, a mutation or change in their genetic make-up occurred and this got passed on to all human beings, who arose from this first pair? I think that is what must really have happened.

The most interesting question is, God being omniscient, knew full well that the human pair will disobey him and eat the forbidden fruit, then why did He place such a tree in the Garden at all? Well, God did not create us to be robots, but human beings with reasoning capacity and a free will. In so creating the human beings, He ran the risk of them choosing bad over good and wrong over right. It was a risk that He had to take; it was the price He had to pay for creating human beings in His image. Even before laying the foundations of this world He knew this is going to happen and had already made His plans to retrieve human beings from such an evil-ridden world.

Some would like to defend the female of the species by saying, poor Eve was alone when the serpent seduced her. This is not true according to the biblical account. Adam was very much with her. She took the initiative, reasoned out and decided to eat the fruit and gave it to her husband, who also ate it. She was neither vulnerable nor poor nor alone. She was a strong woman, who took a reasoned out decision; unfortunately the decision was a bad decision and back fired on the entire human race.

In this sin-ridden world, good people also suffer because the entire values system in the world has been marred or polluted because of evil and sin. Good or bad, every one born as human being suffer this misfortune.

But God has not left the beautiful and a world full of goodness He created to suffer and perish in evil. He had devised a plan, a plan that started at the very moment when Eve plucked the fruit to eat. He told the woman that her ‘Seed’ will bruise the head of the serpent, the Devil.[2] Paul clarifies that this ‘Seed’ is Christ. God’s plan was that Jesus be born as a human being, but without sin, and be crucified by the evil forces, die and be buried, but rise again on the third day having won a victory over evil. Because of this, he received the power to forgive the sins of human beings, if they ask in sincere repentance, so that they could be reconciled with God.

Many non-believers raise the question is it necessary for God to let His Son Jesus Christ die such a gruesome death on the cross? Was there no other better way of redeeming the people from sin and suffering? Well, evil can be overcome only by goodness. That is the law of the universe created by God. Paul urges the Christians in Rome, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”[3] That is what Jesus did. He overcame the world, not by paying evil for evil, but by paying evil with goodness. His death and apparent defeat to the evil forces on the cross, turned out to be a victory over the evil forces, for God raise him alive from death and he became the Savior to all those who would put their trust in him.

Now that we have seen how the real Fall happened and how this Original Sin is the reason for evil to enter the world and overpower mankind, let’s see how God uses these sufferings to our advantage. When sufferings strike us, we start searching for God. When we are happy and everything is going on well, hardly we even remember God. But in trials and tribulations we get close to God and seek His help to get us out of trouble. Intense pain and suffering pushes us to seek God. C.S. Lewis writes, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain; it is His megaphone to rouse the deaf world.”[4]

Thus the Bible teaches us that God is good and the counterpart of goodness is evil; God has the wisdom to separate good from the evil, and do only good; man lacks that wisdom. God is omnipotent, all powerful, still because He has given man a free will, He has to allow him to commit mistakes and learn. But He provided an antidote to evil in His Son, Jesus Christ, who died for us, submitting to the powers of evil, but overcame them by his goodness and death as a sacrifice to free us from the iron-grip of sin and evil. God is not indifferent; He deeply cares for us, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”[5]

I hope you got a good picture of the truth, truth about sin and suffering, why God allows it, human beings’ role in it, and God’s remedial measure to counter the evil in this world.

God bless you and keep you.

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[1] Genesis 1:31

[2] Genesis 3:15

[3] Romans 12:21

[4] Lewis, C.S., The Problem of Pain, HarperSan Francisco, 1940, copy 1996, p.91

[5] John 3:16

Points of Difference between Christianity and Hinduism

In the last blog we saw how from Upanishads of yester-years all the tenets of today’s Hinduism have arisen. We also saw many differences between Christianity and Hinduism. In this blog I want to deal with a ubiquitous comment of every Hindu, whom we come across in our daily walk, that all religions teach the same and that there is one God whom different religions call by different names. Like different rivers which finally merge with the ocean, all religions are just different paths to reach one God. Is this correct? Is Jesus and Shiva or Vishnu or even Allah the same? Do even Hindus believe this? Or is it their way of assimilating the other religions into their fold, while keeping theirs intact? Because, if all religions are the same then why is this furore over conversion in India? Again, if there are no differences between religions why do people fight over religion and kill each other all over the world, throughout man’s history? We will analyze some of these issues in this blog.

First of all, Hindus worship many gods. They have no compunction in including many others as they go; they would even worship Jesus as one among their many gods. They are polytheists. Bible teaches that there is One God and He is the true God and there is no other God besides Him.[1] It is a strict Monotheism. All three religions that arose from Abrahamic faith, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are monotheistic religions. This biblical God, Yahweh, whom Jews worshiped, is also worshiped as God by Christians, for Jesus called Him his Father.[2] Jesus also promised to send his followers the Holy Spirit, as a Helper and Comforter.[3] Though this God Christians know as the Triune God, it is not three different gods, but made of the same substance and constitute one, single Godhead. It is not three different gods making a triumvirate like the Hindu gods of Brahma, the creator, Vishnu the sustainer and Shiva the destroyer. The Triune God, since beginning, starting with the creation of the world and in the working out of the plan of God for the salvation and redemption of the fallen human race,[4] and the on-coming final end of the world in consummation, have always worked as One.[5] So this is the first and the major difference between the two religions.

Secondly, though in Hinduism at the popular level many gods are worshiped as idols, in Brahminical Hinduism, which has Vedanta philosophy at the core as its belief, Brahman, their god, has no shape; it is one amorphous, effulgent, shining mass of consciousness, called Paramatman; there is no name or form or attributes. Christians hold their God as Spirit,[6] but we have in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who walked on earth, the very image of God.[7] God worshiped by Christians has attributes; He is merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abounding in goodness and truth.[8] This is another major difference between the two religions.

Third, there is no karma theory and the connected caste system in Christianity. The hall-mark of Hinduism is karma theory, the cycle of repeated births and deaths and the resultant caste system. A person reaps the effects of his karma (bad or good deeds) done in the previous births; he suffers in this life, by being born in the lower castes and as out caste (Dalit), if he has done bad deeds in the previous lives; or enjoys life by being born in upper castes, if he had done enough good deeds in the previous births. The status of a person in the caste hierarchy is directly related to his karma. There is no escape from karma; even gods cannot forgive a person’s evil deeds; he has to pay it by suffering for it in the next births. This is the explanation that Hindus give for a person who is suffering in this life. They also do not believe in helping the suffering or the downtrodden to improve his life, because he has to pay up his penalty. Though this attitude is changing now, due to the influence of Christianity and the West, the basic attitude is that a leper or a man in the slums is paying his previous karma and he has to go through that. He is not to be helped. That will be interference with his fate!

Here in lies the major difference. In Hinduism no one, not even gods can forgive a person of his sins (mistakes, intentional and unintentional included); in Christianity, Christ has acclaimed that He, the Son of Man (another title of Christ), has the authority to forgive sins.[9] As a matter of fact, He is the only God who ever said that He has the authority to forgive sins. Peter in his very first sermon said thus to the people, who were cut to their hearts that they could be saved, if they repent of their sins, seek forgiveness from Christ and obtain remission of sins, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ and receive the Holy Spirit.[10] We need do to do nothing; no working out our karma by doing good deeds; or trying to earn our way to heaven through good works. No, Jesus has done it all for us on the cross; he has paid the price for our sins; all that we have to do is to accept it in faith and seek His forgiveness, and then lead a godly life, guided and helped by the Holy Spirit.

Yes, Christians are always in the forefront doing good works, but that is not with an intention of earning merit before God, but because they have already been saved and included in the family of God, where they can call God their Abba, Father.[11] What a privilege and what a difference! Who dare say that there are no differences between various religions!

Another important difference is how the Hindu and Christian see the body. The former considers the body as a prison, which holds the spirit or soul captive; hence their mukti or deliverance is when the soul discards the body in death and rises above to merge with the Brahman. Nothing good comes out of the body for him. But in the case of the latter, the Christian, the body is precious because God created it and hence it is good; God created man in His own image;[12] secondly because the body is the temple in which the Holy Spirit resides.[13] How can that be evil? Body is good and when we die and are resurrected, it will be with the body that we will rise and stand before God for judgment.

Christians also have no such concept of merger with God as Hindus have. Creator God is always separate, pure and holy. Man in his death can never be so pure as to become one with God. The Creator and the created beings will always be separate.

Hindus see the world as an extension of Brahmans and believe that Brahman vibrates in all animals, humans and nature. That is also a reason why they are able to worship any and everything, including bird, animals and humans as gods. This is strictly prohibited in the Bible. No idol worship of any created being.[14]

Well, my friends, so if anyone is telling you that there are no differences between religions, he is simply ignorant or is trying to take you for a ride. There are deep and major differences. Only in the ethics, may be, some virtues as being good, god-fearing, respect to elders and parents, importance of alms-giving, etc, there is some kind of similarity. But in the core issues there are many deep and enduring differences. We need to be aware of these and be able to defend ourselves, when such casual remarks are thrown at us by our Hindu friends! And beware of the assimilating tendency and assimilating power of Hinduism!

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[1] Exodus 20:3

[2] John 15:9 and many such passages

[3] John 14:25, 16:13; Romans 8:15

[4] Galatians 4:4-6

[5] Genesis 1:26;

[6] John 4:24

[7] John 1:14

[8] Exodus 34:6-7

[9] Matthew 9:6

[10] Acts 2:38

[11] Galatians 4:6; Romans 8:15-16

[12] Genesis 1:27

[13] 1 Corinthians 6:19-20;

[14] Exodus 20:4

Upanishads of Hinduism

In the last blog we saw the beginnings of Hinduism in the Vedic corpus, which is really the Brahminical Hinduism. Besides the four Vedas, the last to be included in the corpus was Upanishads, called Vedanta, meaning Ved-anta, end of Vedas. You will be surprised to know that more than the Vedas it is from these Upanishads that we can trace the beginnings of today’s practicing Hinduism. This is also the Vedanta philosophy that Swami Vivekananda took to the West and gave a thrilling address in the Parliament of World Religions in September 1893 at Chicago, USA.

So what is this Upanishads? How did that come about? What are its main tenets? We will see these shortly. We learnt that the Brahmins had kept for themselves the top notch in the caste system they invented, even above the warrior kings. The reason being they had the monopoly of the Vedic mantras and rites, and conducted the sacrifices to please their gods. Now, the kshtryas resented this and some of the princes retired to the forests to meditate and fathom what could be the right religion for them to follow. They were not happy with the huge sacrifices of the animals or the chanting of Vedas, which gave the Brahmins the monopoly over the religion, and the consequent power over the people.

We know that Prince Siddhartha, getting restless and unhappy over the existing state of affairs, gave up his married and worldly life and became Buddha after his enlightenment. Many others, after a lot of meditation and thinking came to certain conclusions and collectively these are known as Upanishads. Some fifteen or so of these Upanishads have survived and a good reading of these will give us an understanding of it. We need to remember that these are philosophical musings of a disgruntled princes and aristocrats to overcome the monopoly of Brahmins in the religion. Philosophy is basically man-made.

Upanishads’ concept of god is that it is the Supreme Self or Paramatma, the first principle. It is an impersonal one. It is called Brahman, and exists as an undifferentiated homogeneous mass of consciousness. It is divine but not a personal deity. The Self or atman is the individual selves or souls. These souls, when they apprehend the Brahman and merge with it, achieve mukti, the final liberation from life. This involves the obliteration of all distinction as individuals. It is a merging of the individuals in the Paramatma. Thereafter pure oneness alone remains. It is avidhya or ignorance, maya or illusion that makes the individual souls, the atmans to think that they are separate.

Herein lies the first difference from Christianity. Christians know their God as a personal God, who interacts with them and with the human history. The reality of the world, and human beings and all other objectives are affirmed because these are reality and created by God. Even after redemption and salvation, human beings never merge with the Creator God; they remain as the created beings separate from the Creator God.

Because there is no distinction between Brahman the Supreme Self and the atman the Self of the beings, including man, Upanishads proclaim that self or atman is god. The famous statement is “Thou art that,” meaning ‘you are that,’ ‘that’ representing Brahman or Paramatman. The equation is Brahman=Atman. The human beings are no different from the divine which pervades the whole world. The world itself is seen as the extension of Brahman and not a reality. Brahman is the only reality that is all-pervading, the source of everything into which everything in the final act will merge. This is the understanding of religion and existence after death by Hindus even today.

Another difference is quickly seen here with Christianity. Christians never consider themselves as gods. They are the created beings, created and separate from the Creator, God. God told Moses to go and tell the Israel people under slavery in Egypt, that His name is “I AM that I AM” and that “I AM” has sent Moses to them to deliver them from slavery.[1] It was never ‘you are that,’ or ‘you are god,’ but I AM, a positive affirmative proclamation of deity of God. This difference between the Creator God and the created beings, animate or inanimate, is not there in Hinduism. That is why we will notice even today Hindus can accept any one as god, and will build you a temple and worship you if you have done something good for the community.

The distinction that Brahman is separate and human beings or the world is separate from Brahman is the work of maya (illusion) or avidhya (ignorance). Because of this ignorance, human beings think the world is real and get involved in it and become enmeshed in samsara (life in general). They marry, give birth to children, raise them up and are so attached to them, all because of maya. They live and die and again and again take birth and live and enter into the never ending cycle of birth and death or the samsara. On achieving true knowledge that the Self is the Brahman, this ignorance ceases and the Self or Atman escapes from samsara, the world cycle of repeated birth and death, and gets absorbed in Brahman, shining as pure and effulgent as Brahman. 

Well, this in nutshell is the core of Upanishads. Because the world and its activities were considered as not real but imaginary, the best of Hindu minds went into contemplative mode rather than take interest in life and improve it. Objectivity was lost and creativity got lost as well. We had no industrial revolution or great Nobel Prize winners in our country mainly because science, physics, biology were all neglected as being not relevant and result of maya.

This concept of samsara, or repeated cycle of birth and death, got enmeshed with the caste system. It became rather a tool in the hands of the clever Brahmins, who not only embraced and incorporated Upanishad teachings within Vedic corpus, but also legitimized caste system with this concept of samsara. The idea of karma theory started to develop. The soul or atman took repeated births because of its deeds or karma. The accumulated karma of previous births led a person to be born in a particular caste. If the bad deeds or bad karma were more, then the person was born in a low caste or even out of the caste or even out of humankind, as an insect or a dog or a crow. If the good karma outweighed the bad karma, then he was born in the higher hierarchy of caste, even as a Brahmin. Thus a person with leprosy or any such disease or blindness or deafness was attributed to his bad karma from the precious births and lives. We see this trend even today.

What gave the karma theory more teeth as the Kshtrya philosophers agonized over the injustices happening in the world? How come bad things happen to good people in this world? What could be the reason why one person is born as a leper or blind or lame of deaf? They reasoned it out that it must be because of the person’s previous karma or bad deeds. This crunched the issue. A man-made reasoning, a finding that was possible with the tiny brain that we all have within our cranium, created such a horrible system, where people for centuries remained in a backward and low status thinking that they are suffering so in this life, because of their bad karmas of previous lives. So instead of improving his life, he was despondent that his fate or karma was the reason for his state and that it can never be improved. Fatalism and pessimism corroded the confidence of the population. It sucked the life blood out of India and her people suffered for millennia under the yolk of caste system and karma theory. It still continues in the rural areas in India.

On the contrary, in Christianity we see life as a gift from God, whatever may be the difficulties, we have the confidence that we have a prayer-answering God who knows what we go through and is concerned about our welfare. That is because Christ came and lived as a man in this world. The goal of religion in Christianity is not escape from the world; body is not a prison for the soul; we believe in a life after death, a bodily resurrection and a life lived in the glorious presence of God and Christ. Jesus died, but rose on the third day, giving us a hope that we will do so also.

There is only one life and that is this life which we are living. The destiny as to where we end up after death, whether in heaven with God and Christ eternally or in hell with Satan and his minions eternally, will be decided on what we do with this life. That is why Christ said “Repent and return for the kingdom of God is near.” The emphasis is not on doing good karma to earn brownie points but to repent of the wrongs done and accept Jesus Christ as God and Savior, who is able to forgive our sins and grant us the Holy Spirit, who is able to keep us on the path of righteousness.

We do good deeds not to earn salvation, but because we have already received salvation in Christ. Out of that gratitude and love for others which is the flow of love from Christ and God that we warn others to repent and accept Christ when there is still time. It is not arrogance that makes us urge others to accept Christ as the only true God, but because we know the dire consequences of someone who refuses so great a salvation.  Will you listen my friend and act today and save your soul? God guide you to decide on this matter of eternal consequence, so that you don’t regret later.

God bless you and keep you.

Amen.

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[1] Exodus 3:14

Origins of Hinduism

After having seen the origin of us, Indians, it is time now to move on to the origin of Hinduism. Our forefathers came out of Africa, who moved into Indian subcontinent some 65,000 years back, and spread all over the place. The previous occupants of the country, the Neanderthals just vanished once modern man set his foot in the country! Then came the Zagros Iranians with their domesticated cattle and agriculture around 7000 BC to the western India and mingled with the out of African forefathers. This led to the Harappan civilization, which had its high point in 2600 BC, but declined and disappeared around 1900 BC. They moved to the south and to the east. Last came the Aryans from Kazakh steppes of Eurasia around 1600 – 1100 BC through the same western corridors and mixed with the Harappan population. From the east we had admixture of Chinese and Australian tribes as well. This in short is our ancestry! Amazing, isn’t it?

Now the question is how did Hinduism rise out of all these? Origin of Hinduism is shrouded in mystery to say the least. Aryans when they came in confronted the declining Harappan civilization, who had mother-goddess worship, fertility cult, and a proto-Shiva sitting in yoga pose under a peepal tree with a trident. Harappans, who went to the south carried their beliefs. Even today we see a strong tendency of mother worship in the south, with names of goddesses like Kattamma, Madivalamma and so on. Harappans civilization was urban based, with sheep and buffaloes, a settled life with agriculture as the main stay.

Aryans were nomadic pastoral people, who brought into India horse, wheel and Sanskrit language. They had many gods, mainly the natural elements, like Surya the sun-god, Agni the fire-god, Indra the rain-god, Vayu the wind-god and so on. They sacrificed to their gods, which was very important to them. They sacrificed horses – ashvameda sacrifice, humans – purushameda sacrifice, and gifting away one’s property - sarvameda sacrifice.

As the Aryans moved gradually towards the east, the Gangetic valley, by 1500 BC they composed their first liturgy, the Rigveda. It had basically poems, some 1017 hymns grouped into 10 mandalas (books), which were chanted as mantras while performing the sacrifices. By chanting these, they believed that the particular god for whom they conducted the sacrifice, would come and grant their wishes. Their petitions were for victory in the war over the local indigenous leaders, prosperity, and increase in cattle wealth. To please their deities they offered the sacrifices. It was a magical chanting, which was the exclusive preserve of the priests, enhancing their prestige and power in the community.

Sama Veda, which contained some 1000 songs taken from Rigveda and rendered musical came next; Atharva Veda, the next Veda had 50 recensions, spells used by the priests while performing the sacrifices. Finally Yajur Veda which contained ritualistic passages of adoration and worship of gods in prose, and also a good amount of black magic and tantric rites; this is dated 500 BC.  

Thus from 1500 to 500 BC they had composed the four Vedas and this period is called the Vedic period. Each of these Vedas had their own Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads. As they conquered more and more territory and moved into the whole of Indian subcontinent, which happened by 200 AD, they also formulated their own code of conduct and reorganized the society for their advantage. The way of life or ‘Dharma’ as they called it, prescribed on the population was Varnashrama Dharma. It contained four varnas, based on the color of the skin and the level of pollution, as they thought. Brahmins, priestly class, who were the priests, kshatryas, the warriors, vaishya consisting of the traders and the farmers and finally the Sudra, the servile class which was to serve all the other three upper classes. Sudras were mainly the local population, whom they had conquered.

The ashrama dharma contained the stages of a man’s life, the first being the student life, devoted to study, the Brahmacharya; next being the married man whose task was to earn and support all the rest, the Grahastha; then the elders who left everything under the care of their sons and moved to the forests along with their wives, to meditate and live an ascetic life, the Vanaprastha and finally the fully renounced Sunnyasa, who maintained himself by begging till he found his mukti or liberation.  

This classification of people and life sounds admirable, excepting that it worked fully for the enrichment and advantage of the upper classes and the oppression and exploitation of the lower classes. From 1500 BC to 100 AD, the Aryans had mingled with the local population, marrying with whomever they thought attractive or rich enough for them to marry. By 100 AD they brought in caste system with its regulations and restrictions on marriage. Genome studies show that the intermixing stopped precisely at this point and the most unjust practice of caste system started. Sub castes and subgroups emerged into which they accommodated people groups according to their influence, power, position, bargaining power and riches.

The result was India, which was thriving so far having a wider influence, especially after Emperor Ashoka, who sent his son and daughter and others to the nearby eastern countries to spread Buddhism. This grew into a Greater India, as the cultural conquest and influence of India spread to Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, China and even Japan. With the restrictions introduced, India started to look inward and all the initiatives of the population were curbed and there was no innovation or motivation or upward mobility guaranteed by hard work, which a poor or a hardworking man could look forward to. Each one was fossilized in their own caste and sub caste. Birth determined it all. By weaving religious beliefs into the caste system, they nailed the system deep in the psyche of the population.

The priestly class or the Brahmins were all powerful as they controlled the access to gods and prosperity; they kept the kings or warriors in good stead because they wanted security; the kings themselves needed the Brahmins to legitimize their rule; the farmers and traders were tolerated, but the Sudras and the outcastes were oppressed and humiliated and exploited. Outside the caste system existed the primitive tribal communities, who were not even included in the caste system, but were outcastes. They are the Scheduled caste and Scheduled tribes incorporated into our constitution at independence. Gandhi called them Harijans, as if the change in name would alter their condition; now they call themselves Dalits and are still fighting for their rights and economic liberation.

Women were suppressed and put down. Harappan culture gave women importance as they had practiced mother worship. Moreover they practiced matriarchal system, where property passed through the women in the family. Aryans being pastoral were patriarchal and had male gods and gave importance to males. To suppress the independent indigenous women folks, and to keep them subjugated, they brought in child marriage, lowered social status for widows and even introduced sati, where young widows, married to older men, were burnt on the funeral pyre of the dead husbands, which was supposed to bring vimochana (liberation) to the whole family.

They organised settlements into villages, ‘gramma,’ after clearing the forests, where representatives of all the four castes were settled; the Sudras and outcastes were demilitarized, their weapons removed and given no right to carry weapons; they could not buy any piece of land or own land in their names. They were not to learn and recite Vedas, but were kept in ignorance. They were made dependent on the upper castes for their livelihood and survival. Birth in a particular caste became a death warrant. No possibility of improving their fate; it was all written.

All these were happening when in the far distant Israel, Jesus died for the sins of the world and rose on the third day, proving God’s plans worked not through oppression and exploitation, but through love and sacrifice. Jesus Christ liberated human beings from the hold of sin and oppression. By the first century, 100 AD, when India was closing, the New Testament had been written and the disciples of Christ were on their move spreading the teachings of Christ all over the Roman Empire, and dying as martyrs.

Yes, Thomas, the disciple is said to have come to India and thus brought in Christianity to India, but it will take a full 1600 years before missionaries would come to India and spread Christianity in a meaningful way. I am referring to the Tranquebar Mission, which was established in Tharangambadi in today’s Tamil Nadu, by two German missionaries, Ziezenbalg and Plutschau in 1706 in the Danish East India Company premises. 200 years of British rule brought in modernity to India, and the much needed social liberation to the lower castes, outcastes and women in India. Still India is steeped in ignorance, superstition and poverty, especially in the BEMARU states (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and former Uttar Pradesh), which the politicians exploit to come to power.

Well, that is the history of Hinduism’s origin and development. We cannot pinpoint a time or date when the name Hinduism was given to this amalgamated religion. May be the Greek visitors like Magasthenes, who visited India in 303 BC, and Chinese pilgrims like Fahien, who came in 399 AD, referred to Hinduism as the religion practiced by the inhabitants of Hindustan. But one thing is certain, the religion that Aryans brought in and established was Brahminical Hinduism, which ran for a long time above the surface of the common or popular Hinduism practiced by the people, whom they conquered and oppressed. The Brahmins had to accommodate the gods of the local population and Shiva and Shakti (Kali or Parvati) came to be the major deity of Hinduism. No one worships Agni or Indra or Varuna today. It was a gradual process of accommodation and assimilation that went on for 3500 years to produce the mammoth Hinduism of today.

Does it sound a depressing tale to recount? Yes, it does, especially for those who do not fall in the upper two or three castes of Brahminical Hinduism. May be it is so unjust, because it is a code of life prepared by human beings, for their own selfish reasons and to preserve their own position in the society and to exercise power and control. In contrast is the Law commanded by God to Moses, is humane, with concern and care for the poor, the suffering and the downtrodden. One is a man-made religion; the other is God-given religion. May be there lies the difference.