Religion Decision Aid (RDA) – Hinduism update

I just had my Bengal Spice Tea and remembered some Hinduism stuff that I read on the plane back to South Africa recently. Since I gave Hinduism such a low rating I thought it appropriate and fair to consider this new piece of information in the Religion Decision Aid (RDA) rating. Some of the reason for the low rating was of course the complexity of Hinduism as explained and the multiple times you have to go through hell before you can get out of the eternal life cycle of rebirths. All this is of course a very tiring process to go through over and over again. Some clever Hindu god though, because I Assume that it was one of the gods, came up with the idea of making the river Ganges holy. The great thing about Ganges is that if you have a bath there it will take 7years off your karma! It’s a shortcut in other words. You get less hassle with the heavens and hells before your up and coming rebirth… or if you’re lucky to be already high up on the ladder it might be your ticket to moksha, or Nirvana in other words. I think it’s really great to have a shortcut like this.

My assumption about the creation of this shortcut is only partly true though. It was a wise man of flesh and blood that started it. He had such a good karma that he could ask the gods for a favor. The river Ganges was originally running through heaven only. The wise man Bhagiratha obviously had a very good memory from one of his earlier lives and time in heaven… and remembered the Ganges. His wish was that Ganges could flow on earth. Shiva granted him this wish and let it flow right past the place he was living. So it wasn't just about making it holy, or doing a simple redirection of a stream from one valley to another. He needed a godly favor fir sure. Millions of Hindus are now doing their pilgrimage to Ganges. Of course the karma thing is important. If it was me though, and me being a Hindu of course, I would make an extra effort to track down the wise man Bhagiratha in his reborn and present shape to thank him of all my heart. I assume of course that his karma was pretty exhausted after he redirected Ganges to earth. After spending all the credits from his karma account he must still be among us… as a pig or a monk depending on his initial karma balance and the cost of Ganges of course. Really generous of him I must say. In my mind the wise man is like Jesus who took on all the responsibility for all us sinners. Bhagiratha made it possible for everybody to escape quite a few hells along the way.

This will of course increase the Hinduism rating on my RDA! Hinduism is obviously not a static religion either… they add new features when needed or when the gods have been extra kind. This is a big plus! It also means that my RDA one pager cannot be a finished and done project when I’ve worked my way through all the religions. It will be a dynamic and living document in constant development. My job will become a nightmare if every little wise man like Bhagiratha will knock on my door and apply for a reconsideration of his religion and the added features. I think the gods messengers on earth could be a good starting point. The pope would obviously represent Christianity then. If all the Hindu gods all have a messenger on earth, this will of course be unfair to Christianity and all the other religions with fewer representatives.

In any event this will be a lot of work for one man. I can see it growing into a big organization. Especially if Hinduism will come with all the gods’ messengers I will need quite a few consultants to take off some of the workload. The problem is that I could not employ a Hindu or a Christian for such a position. It would have to be someone totally unaffected with religion and unbiased in any way possible. Like me! I know we Stensby’s are unique. Maybe I should start looking for that specific Stensby gene that makes us impenetrable to religion and spirituality and thus an ideal candidate as a RDA-consultant? In any event I can see that this can be nothing but a family business. It’s like having all the production rights for food… a pretty basic thing for survival and at the very foundation of Maslows hierarchy of needs. Just a bit higher up in the hierarchy you find the need for beliefs and religion… and that’s the Stensby domain! The Stensby Klondike!

Although Hinduism has not figured out how to beat Christianity and Islam it’s quite a competitive religion still. Hinduism is to religion what Beckham is to football. Just check out the Om sign. Om is the holiest of all sounds to a hindu… even more so than the bellowing of the holy cow. If you have ever seen the Om sign though, it could just as well been printed on Beckhams shirt… or be the result of a football game. I always thought it looked like 30 or 3-0, but never dared to mention it to anybody. I was shocked to find that it’s true though (3 for the trinity of creation, preservation and destruction, and zero for the quietness of the amalgamation with god)… or 3 to Hinduism and zero for Islam.

Heaven and Hell

I am an agnostic or atheist, although a member of the Norwegian state church - a Christian! A hypocrite in other words. It's the Christianity that has been closest (and put the most pressure to convert me), and where my natural mind frame lies... In Christianity we/they've got heaven and hell... used to pressure you to join... and the two somewhat different end stations are there waiting for you! Recently I've been so enthralled with Kavady festival in the Hindu community here in South Africa... and now I've been wondering about the Hindu concepts of heaven and hell.

It's really hard to choose religion when they are so very different. Even though I'm an agnostic/atheist (never remember which is which, but it's a pretty approximate description still), I've sensed the spirituality creeping in on me. So I thought in case I should want to pick a religion in the future some time, I might as well do some exploratory research. To make the choice easier of course. Obviously the choice of heaven and hell you'll be faced with are crucial factors when deciding on a religion and cannot be taken easily! Considering my track record so far... I'm most concerned about hell, so that's a natural starting point in my research. In any event I'll have to do some time there... long story!

I overheard this guy talking... and he had been to an astrologer specializing in reincarnation. The astrologer told him that he had been in hell in a past life, and this was why he was afraid of fire. From what I know, the reincarnation is totally a Hindu thing. They get reborn, hopefully in a higher level... social class or cast than in the last attempt. This guy had been in hell!! But hey... he got out of it, and now he's starting again with clean sheets! Only a short stop in hell... drive-through hell... or hell in transit sort of?! What kind of hell is that? Barely purgatory if you ask me... where you get blow torched a bit for past sins... and then you're off again. It would suit me fine! It's like the catholics. They confess their sins to the priest inside the little cottage... and then everything is well again... your crime register is wiped out. In countries where the catholic church is also the state church, they obviously synchronize the church crime register with that of the police. Thus you are properly off the hook and uncorrupted like a virgin angel again. I'd say the catholic way is very appealing... Much more so than the Hindu and the Christian protestant way. I mean, why not get over and done with it in your present life... off your shoulders so that you don't risk any health hazards... manic depressive caused by your own bad conscience or something ironic like that! Ok, that was a little Catholic detour, but enough about that.

The Hindu hell (and heaven) is a bit like tracking down Lord Murugan for my Kavady research... it exist... and then it doesn't after all according to another source. There are no concepts of hell (Narka) in the Vedas and Upanishads... but in the Puranas you do find it. In the Bhagvad Purana a number of descriptions of various activities, and the hells you will go to when they take place, are given. Note the plural of hell!! Furthermore is a long story about what kind of karmas will lead to what kind of births... This must be the reincarnation that are based on your track record. Wouldn't it be nice to combine some catholicism here to clean your record in advance to ensure a top reincarnation?! Although several hells are mentioned in Bhagvad Purana, it's a common belief that hell is a concept that crept into Hinduism from other cultures... Cultures with beliefs that were more inn (fashionable) at the time. I derive from this that the Puranas may have been fiddled with at some stage... or maybe some oral channels corrupted it before it was put down on paper. I will therefore take the Puranas with a good pinch of salt. In any event, who the hell would choose Hinduism with SEVERAL HELLS?! Hinduism is already low on my ranking. Hindus must be bloody masochists!!

Unlike in the Christian tradition where the words are taken quite literally... you can not do that in Hinduism. There are so many facets in between the lines that a tradition of teaching is needed to avoid misunderstanding. What you find in the one book/script is rejected in another. By the time you understand, you are in a serious state of schizophrenia. I'm just accumulating some keywords here... You know, pros and cons, to make the decision easier in the end. So far I've got; multiple hells, masochists and schizophrenia. I'm sure it will pick up!

If you where missing any blog posts recently, then it was because the following stuff was a bit hard to grasp for me. A lot of research... and consideration, doubts and reconsiderations of findings was going through my processor. To understand properly, you have to accept the various levels of conception of the individual. There is the gross physical level, the subtle mental level, and the pure level of awareness. The physical body is not going anywhere. Except maybe 6 feet under and you rot, or you burn on a raft... and that's the end of it. None of the hells are situated on earth either, so the physical part is irrelevant. Pure awareness, or Atman, is beyond the cycle of rebirth and death (as explained consistently in all of the scriptures). Shame - you overdid it in other words, stuck in a dead end and cannot travel anywhere, for there is nowhere for your Atman to go. I really hope that it's possible to make a u-turn and find your way back to the "subtle body" offramp though. Otherwise Atman must be just another hell altogether. Because it's the "subtle body" the scriptures are talking about travelling to heavens and hells after death, and then returning to earth to be reborn after discharging its collected karma. This reminds me of some computer games I've played where you need to collect a certain number of points or treasures or whatever to get to the next level. Maybe computer games could be a good way of marketing Hinduism actually... the real geeks would have no problem to fathom this. Reality series also maybe, but it would probably be hard to follow the "subtle body" to hell and back.

The subtle body is not going anywhere either though. What a bloody disappointment! It is just a collection of your mental instruments. These instruments include the mind (manas, not mañana), the faculty of discrimination (buddhi), and the ego (ahankara). Heaven and hell are states of mind, not places you may go to for pleasure or pain. It is a state of mind upon death... and before rebirth... but also during life. Heaven and Hell are according to the puranas only temporary states to existence to exhaust karma, not at all a final and permanent locked up condition. So when someone tells you they are going through hell... that is Hinduistically speaking quite possible! Since Heaven and Hell are only temporary pitstops though, you might wonder what comes next. Beyond Heaven and Hell is the unconditional bliss of Nirvana - a sort of Super-Heaven. Nirvana (Moksha) is the true purpose in life for a Hindu. So there is a final stage in Hindu as well, they just make it a bit more complicated. You go to Heaven and Hell to get your rewards and punishments according to your life-record and the severness of the incidents. Only then, when you have served your accumulated time in both Heaven and Hell, you can approach Nirvana.

Summing up:
You can get out of Hell, only a temporary thing: 10 points!
Would like to stick around in Heaven for awhile longer though: -2 points
H&H pitstops through multiple lives -10 points!
Multiple hells, masochistic, schizophrenia -10 points!
Complex religion & philosophy - 2 points
Computer Game-like philosophy 10 points!
Nirvana Super-Heaven 10 points!
Total points: 6 points

Ok, the following definitions are not my own. "Somebody" made me go through all 7 hindu hells because of these definitions. I found them somewhere, I don't know where anymore, and thought it was a bit fun... so don't give me a hard time about these ones.

Definition of Hell:
If you're having an American wife, Indian salary, Chinese car and German food.

Definition of Heaven:
If you're having an Indian wife, American salary, Chinese food and German car.

Christian preacher/Hindu conversation:
Preacher: "You will go to hell (being a Hindu)"!
Hindu: "Dear Sir, why I should go to a Christian hell, when we Hindus have seven hells to go to."
The poor preacher is gaping in awe!