God is a person. Eastern thought tends to be nontheistic. It sees the ultimate as something transpersonal, and the goals of its practitioners are awareness and unity. Although many Eastern religions have a place for gods in their scheme of things, they see ultimate reality as something that is both beyond the gods yet, at the same time, locked within the heart of every being.
So it might be accurate to say that while in Western thought the divine is a person, in Eastern thought, every person is ultimately divine. The concept of time marks another telling difference between Eastern and Western thought. In the West, time is often compared to a swift-running river. It flows in one direction—toward eternity. This viewpoint makes us look at eternity in a one-sided way. Although many Westerners spend a considerable amount of time contemplating a life after death, life before birth is left out of the equation.
The classic Rinzai Zen koan, What was your face before you were born? In the East, however, time is more aptly compared to a great primeval ocean, always existing, totally surrounding us. For the West, time means history, and history has meaning. Western religions depend upon historical events to give significance to their most precious beliefs.
God acts through history to teach lessons, redeem, or punish. This concept is entirely absent from Eastern philosophy. Although it would be wrong to say that history is meaningless to Buddhists or Hindus or Taoists, it would be better to say that history is a reflection of human rather than divine action. Because of its different perspective, Eastern religious thought has always fascinated, and often confused, the Western mind.
It emphasizes values the West has forgotten. It shows us a reality that goes beyond our world, yet it is not otherworldly. Far from being impractical, disengaged, and indifferent charges commonly made against them , Eastern religions offer the physical, mental, and spiritual tools to enable a person to live life more fully and deeply.
They lead the way not off into some weird, indefinable ether, but a path deep down into the truest self. Call it absolute. Call it Brahman. Call it Tao. Or speak of it in silence. Many people see some Eastern traditions, notably Confucianism and Theravada Buddhism, as philosophies rather than religions. This is a false distinction. In the East, lines blur between religion and philosophy.
The sacred is not distinct from the profane. All branches of knowledge are seen as aspects of one truth.
To Westerners, who tend to think in terms of categorization, definitions, and labels, this is a strange, even annoying, state of affairs. The Hindu convention of discussing the absolute, unconditioned reality only in terms of negatives, neti neti not this, not this , seems calculated to drive Occidental students insane.
Only when the West stops insisting the East use a Western perspective can Westerners hope to understand the Eastern religions. Each Eastern tradition opens a window on a different aspect of life, from breathing techniques, through sexuality, manners, meditation, metaphysics, worship, art, and ethics. And each tradition has produced a variety of sacred literature to reflect the diverse concerns of its practitioners. The Rig Veda sings glorious songs of praise.
The Bhagavad Gita draws the paradoxical connection between action and detachment. The Tao Te Ching teaches us to live following the example of nature, while the Confucian Classics show us how to make a civilization.
The Upanishads speak philosophically about the nature of the ultimate and the human relationship to it. The great sutras of Mahayana Buddhism teach worship, wisdom, and compassion. Not least, the Tibetan Book of the Dead shows us how to die.
A few general remarks: In every religious tradition, there is a difference between popular belief and scholarly formulation. To complicate matters still more, popular customs differ from place to place, and scholarly attitudes are far from monolithic. And both change over time, sometimes radically. Other complexities emerge. Religion that has been exported to a different culture assimilates some of the attitudes and folkways of that culture.
Does this make them less authentic—or only less Indian, less localized? Most troubling, however, is the inevitable gulf, often vast, between the ideals of any religious tradition and the way it is actually practiced.
Too often, when comparing religions, we are inclined to value our own religion by its ideals, while denigrating other religions based on the habits of their practitioners. For example, Christians may hold up their own religion as a religion of peace and point accusing fingers at the wars fought between Muslims and Jews, while conveniently forgetting the bloody battles Christians have fought throughout the ages—and still do.
This is tremendously unfair, of course. The truth is that few individuals of any faith live up to the noble concepts espoused by their religious heritage. This is in the nature of things. The great world religions have this one thing in common: They give us something to strive for.
Religions are not for perfect people. Why is this? Each tradition offers us a way past or through or over the obstacles and presents us a guide to a life more rich, more joyful, more wise. Ask somebody what comes to mind when you mention the word Hinduism. Yoga, reincarnation, Mahatma Gandhi. Image worship. Beds of nails. The Kama Sutra. Perhaps someone will mention suttee.
Others may talk about avatars or even the Bhagavad Gita. Some of these words do describe certain elements of Hinduism, but none of them comes close to touching its heart. Yet the heart of Hinduism is vast. It has given birth to traditions as diverse as Buddhism, Jainism, Transcendental Meditation, and the philosophy of health guru Deepak Chopra.
It has a religious philosophy that is more sophisticated than anything the West has yet produced and a philosophical religion that is eerily close to particle theory and quantum mechanics. Hinduism is unique among the major religions of the world. It has no founder. It has no dogma. It has no central authority, no pope, and no ecclesiastical council to decide what Hindus must or must not believe.
The result is a bewildering, glorious medley of competing philosophies, disparate religious practices, and divergent lifestyles. Like an amoeba, Hinduism constantly varies its shape. A devout Hindu can be a monotheist, a polytheist, or a nontheist. He can worship at shrines or worship at home. Or not worship at all. He can renounce the world or conquer it. He can give up sex or raise a large family. There is no creed to recite, only paths to follow.
The choice of those paths is completely up to the seeker. In Hinduism, the road to freedom begins with freedom. Defining Hinduism is difficult. To complicate matters even further, Hinduism varies greatly from place to place. A Hindu from Bali practices a very different sort of Hinduism than do Hindus from India, and Hindu customs in northern India differ markedly from those in the south. Only Judaism defines itself precisely the way Hinduism is defined by Westerners.
Just as Judaism is the religion of the Jews, so Hinduism is the religion of the Hindus. They may use the word darshana, which is often translated as philosophy, but really means seeing or experience. Or they may refer to their faith as the Sanatana Dharma, the eternal way of truth. One thing that separates so-called axial religions like Hinduism, Christianity, and Buddhism, from aboriginal, traditional ones is their attitude toward life.
Traditional African, Australian, Native American, and early European religions celebrate life for what it is. Beginning several thousand years ago, however, someone came up with the idea that human existence was flawed in some basic, essential way. In other words, something was wrong with the way life was lived.
The idea of sin developed and troubling questions emerged. Why did some people suffer, through apparently no fault of their own? Why do evil people prosper? What happens after death or before birth? What is the relationship, if any, between gods and human beings? Is there a connection between worship and ethics? There is no word in any Indian language that precisely matches what Westerners mean by religion, a word whose Latin root means to bind.
Hinduism is a nonbinding tradition. It regards all sincere attempts to find divine truth as valid. Our Western passion for categorizing has made religious truth seem like an exclusive property. If one path is true, according to Occidental reasoning, then other paths must be false to the degree they diverge from the true path.
Hindus have a different view. Only Westerners, with their one life to live attitude, get hung up on taking the right road. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, lamented Robert Frost. Unlike Frost, they have time to take as many roads as they choose, if not in this life, then in another one. To understand Hinduism it is essential to understand the Hindu notion of time. This is probably why he attempts it only once in a thousand years.
At any rate, as the raven flies over the summit, the very edge of one fringe brushes the top of the mountain. When the entire mountain has been worn away by the fringe of the passing scarf, one moment in the life of this cosmos has passed.
Hinduism attempts to release us from the false reality into the true reality. The pleasures of this life are also habit-forming; they keep us coming back to them over and over, lifetime after lifetime.
And habits, no matter how pleasant, are fetters on our liberty. Hinduism wants to show us the way there.
It gives us a lot of options. It gives us philosophy to stretch the mind, yoga to expand the spirit, and devotional paths to stir the heart. It has a complex and symbolic mythology that is part religious text, part high literature, and part entertainment. Hinduism was the first major world religion to suspect a profound difference between the world of appearances and ultimate reality.
It was the first to suggest that behind the multiplicity of entities in the universe—trees, stones, horses, perceptions, thoughts, gods, and demons—there was a single, undying unity behind it all. It was the first religion to try to find that unity. The search continues. Karma marga-path of work action -- Chapter 5. Jnana marga-path of knowledge -- Chapter 6. Bhakti marga-path of devotion -- Part 2: Buddhism -- compassionate wisdom. Chapter 7. Life, teachings of Buddha -- Chapter 8.
Buddhist metaphysical concepts -- Chapter 9. Theravada Buddhism-way of elders -- Chapter Mahayana Buddism-great vehicle -- Chapter Tibetan Buddism-way of thunderbolt -- Chapter Zen, other Japanese schools -- Part 3. Confucianism-power of virtue -- Chapter Essential Chinese religious concepts -- Chapter Life of Confucius, master teacher. Chapter Confucian values -- Chapter Confucianism through the ages -- Part 4: Taoism-transformation.
Chapter Lao Tzu, tao te ching -- Chapter To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. Lists with This Book.
Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Mar 28, Jamie rated it it was amazing Shelves: owned , eastern-philosophy. Written very much in the style of a "For Dummies" type of book, this guide provides an excellent, concise, broad-stroke overview of Eastern philosophy and religion. The manner in which the content is divided, categorized, and laid out is particularly helpful from the Western perspective, as many Eastern traditions can sometimes seem to be all over the place by our lights.
A super usef Written very much in the style of a "For Dummies" type of book, this guide provides an excellent, concise, broad-stroke overview of Eastern philosophy and religion. A super useful and interesting primer. Feb 28, John rated it really liked it. A great place to start Aug 19, Dennis Littrell rated it really liked it. Good "Comparative Religion " type guide This is certainly a notch or two above what one would expect to find in a "Dummies" or an "Idiot's" guide.
Diane Morgan, who teaches philosophy and religion at Wilson and Frederick Community College in Pennsylvania, has a light touch that sometimes drifts into something close to irreverence, which might offend some sensitive readers, although the Zen Buddhist part of me found it agreeable. For example, Morgan writes about Milarepa "an important ch Good "Comparative Religion " type guide This is certainly a notch or two above what one would expect to find in a "Dummies" or an "Idiot's" guide.
For example, Morgan writes about Milarepa "an important character in the development of the Kagyupa school of Tibetan Buddhism" who, during an ascetic period of his life before he began imbibing ambrosia , lived on nettle soup "which turned his skin completely green. Consequently this book is written from a secular point of view with the usual assumption that no one religion or philosophy has a monopoly on truth or wisdom.
The first four are covered in some depth, forming the first four parts of the book, while the latter five comprise the five chapters of Part 5. Strictly speaking Tantra is an adjunct of both Hinduism and Buddhism, and it is debatable whether Confucianism should be called a religion. Actually, as Morgan points out, in the East, religion and philosophy go hand in hand, and one is hard put to separate them.
Needless to say it is impossible to do complete justice to even one religion in a single book. Nonetheless I think Morgan does a good job of introducing a religious and philosophical view from the East that is different from the Abrahamic and Greek traditions that are so familiar to us in the West.
What she doesn't do--and I think this is a significant failing--is to make a distinction between the fundamentalist or literal interpretation of the religions and a philosophic or symbolic interpretation.
In Christianity there is a world of difference between the fundamentalist and the more progressive branches, between strict interpretations of the Bible and symbolic ones. In Buddhism in particular there is a significant difference between not just the two main branches or between the Tibetan and Zen offshoots, but between the way the average Buddhist sees the world and the way the monk or the educated Buddhist sees it.
The idea of reincarnation is taken as literal to most Buddhists, but a deeper understanding may require an interpretation that sees our individual "consciousness" as what is reincarnated, with the understanding that our consciousness is like fire, essentially the same in every manifestation. Also in Buddhism and Vedanta part of Hinduism there is the idea of "non-self," an idea that takes many years of study or experience or a marvelous "enlightenment" to fully appreciate.
This idea has very little relevance to the everyday practitioner. It could even be said that the idea of karma, which, as Morgan explains, can include actions from previous lives, is really just a symbolic way of expressing a general tendency in life or even a way of hinting at biological evolution without any need for reincarnations.
In fact, strictly speaking the Buddha spoke only of the here and now, this lifetime and did not trouble himself with gods or afterlives. At any rate, this book is very much like a "Dummies" book with the usual easy-to-read, "lite" style, with sidebars, text boxes and summaries at the end of each chapter. It is especially good for someone who wants an introduction to Eastern religions such as one might get in a Comparative Religion class.
It is for the curious, and good place to start for those who want to go on to more in-depth studies. Dec 28, Z. S rated it it was amazing. Any book claiming to be the best guide in any philosophy or religion that is under pages deserves immediate skepticism. The book isn't bad but it really doesn't strike me as being anything approaching 'The Best Guide to Eastern Philosophy and Religion'. The very title sets the bar too high for a person like me who has an insatiable appetite for knowledge.
Honestly, it is more or less just an introduction to from what the west regards as the eastern's foreign way of thinking.
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