Hindu Morality

Interview with a devotee
Hanuman Temple, Allahabad

[The words of an older man, bald and wearing white clothes, looking to be at least 50 years of age, possibly in the first, or vanprasth, stage of spiritual renunciation and search]. I am from the Riva District of Madhya Pradesh.

Moral teachings come from Hindu traditions, from the religious writings, such as the Ramayana, the Bhagvad Gita, the Bhagvat, and the Puranas. We also get them from the sayings of great rishis. Along with receiving these teachings we also pray to the bhagvans. Our prayer is that our behavior, our thoughts, emotional desires and attitudes, might be holy and pure. If these things are pure, then we will be able to do good deeds. From thoughts come emotions and attitudes, and from emotions and attitudes come works and deeds. We will then be able to agree that looking at others’ wives and daughters in an evil way, or desiring another person’s wealth, results in a moral decline or a fallen state. These sorts of teachings are received from the holy books.

There is truth in our religion. The teachings of the ancient sages and those things written in the holy books — if they strike us as being true, and they are measured out and worked out in practice, then we accept them as being true. Those things which encourage behavior contrary to those teachings and writings, are considered to be wrong.

The relationship between us and the gods, can be looked at in several ways. One is that of a master and slave relationship. Another way of looking at it is we see the bhagvan as our friend. I maintain that he is the supreme, ultimate reality, and all-powerful sustainer and support. By his will does everything on the earth below function.

Our bodies are made up of the five elementary substances [ether, air, fire, water, and earth]. But when we do things like speaking, and other sorts of typical human behavior, then this comes from another power, which is athma, which we consider to be a portion, a piece of bhagvan. Living beings are portions of ishvar.

There is a way of conceiving of and approaching bhagvan as nirakar, as ultimate reality. But in the Hindu religion, we worship bhagvan as sakar. As long as I do not see you, for example, my concentration on you will not be very firm. But when I do see you in your physical form, then I am able to properly concentrate on you. In the same way, in Hinduism, idols are created according to what we conceive bhagvan to be. When we worship the idol, we feel that the life of bhagvan is being honored. Every idol undergoes a ceremony of consecration, which is called pran-pratishtha. This term literally means, “imparting life.” As a result of this ceremony, we believe that a portion of bhagvan is contained in the idol. That formless reality is put into a form which I can worship and relate to.

[Another man in the crowd now speaks in response to the question of why there are internal conflicts if we are, in fact, a piece of bhagvan]. Within us there are ten senses. Five of them are for working and five of them are for gaining knowledge through perception. The human self is not filled in such a way that it’s a stagnant lake, but rather as a flowing river. Its capacity to give increases in proportion to demands that are made upon it. The desires of the body and those which come from maya are such that they can never be satisfied. The more you feed them, the more they increase.