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HOW SHALL I WORSHIP?
The simple folk of Hindu India have listened for many centuries to the advice of their scholars and their wise men. They have heard the answers these learned ones gave to the questions about life and its meaning. And they have done their best to adopt the answers as their own. But there are many people in India, as elsewhere, who cannot make religion their main business. They must till the soil for food for their families and for other people -- for even priests must eat. There are some who must tend the shops, or else all commerce would cease. There are women, whom many men still consider to be incapable of gaining the knowledge that the wise philosophers considered essential.
What are these people to do? They wish to have happy lives. They wish to live at their best. Above all, they wish to free themselves of the endless chain of reincarnations, which, they fear, will keep them living life after life of work and worry. Is there some way that these people may come to know the Great Power within the universe, without having to spend all their days seeking? Is there some way they can live in accordance with the universal laws, without having to spend the money and the time to study with a wise teacher?
THE HELP OF GODS AND GODDESSES
To people like these, Brahman is difficult to understand. Brahman seems vast and remote. To these people the world seems much more friendly if they have a personal god "on their side." They want some god to pray to, to give gifts to, to honor in special ceremonies. They feel that such a god will help them to success in their material undertakings and in their spiritual lives. Because the wise men said that everything reflects Brahman, the people consider their god or goddess to be divine. And many of the people feel that a god like this is all of Brahman they need to know.
And so over the centuries, some personal gods have come to be very popular with the Hindu people. Of the Hindu trinity, Shiva (the destroyer-restorer god) and Vishnu (the savior god) are especially revered. (Vishnu is most often worshiped in one of his incarnated forms, Rama or Krishna.) Worshipers seek the aid of the wives of the gods, too. Some of the important goddesses are Durga, Lakshmi, Sita, and Radha. The most famous is Kali, the Mother Goddess of India. Many temples are built in her honor, and she is worshiped as the universal mother and feared as the foe of all sinful people.
There are many less-known deities to whom shrines are erected and to whom prayers and offerings arc given. Among these are animal gods, nature gods, and legendary heroes. A count of the gods worshiped in India would yield a figure of several hundreds. Each family chooses one god or goddess to worship in particular. While the members of the family may pray and give offerings to other gods, they never forget to pay daily reverence to the family god at the home shrine.
Such gods and goddesses seem closer to men than Brahman, for they are thought to understand human failings and human hopes. So a visitor to India sees images of various gods being fed and dressed and taken for walks. For all of these activities there are suitable rituals, hymns, and prayers. There is somewhere in Hinduism a deity that the humblest of men can comfortably worship.
In this way the masses of Hindu believers answer their questions about what the world is like and what the power behind it is. When they see a storm, they believe it to be the work of one of their gods. When they begin a new undertaking, they believe another of the gods will help them. To some, the world has almost "come alive" with gods and goddesses who can be loved or appeased.
What the average Hindu wants most is aid in his life’s pilgrimage. He believes that he can expect to go on living in one body after another until he learns enough about the true nature of himself and about life. And since he knows he cannot spend as much time as the sages and priests in meditation and study, he looks for short cuts to help him. He hopes to find ways that will give him special merit with the gods -- especially Kali, Vishnu, and Shiva. He believes that since the gods are reflections of the Supreme Spirit, Brahman, the person who so worships is truly helped.
A great number of short cuts have been developed by Hindu devotees. That is the reason travelers to India return with stories strange to our ears. They tell of people thronging to bathe in the River Ganges, the largest river there, and in other rivers and streams. Hindus come to the water because they believe it to be especially purifying; it will wash away some of their past sins and give them merit with the gods. Even the riverbanks are considered sacred. Some Hindus hope to gain ease for their consciences or a better position in their next lives by walking for great distances along the banks of some of the rivers.
The city of Benares is a sacred city to Hindus. They believe that a person who dies within a ten-mile radius of the city will have the mistakes of his previous lives forgotten by the gods. He may go for a stay of many years in one of the heavens of which Hindus speak. But after this "rest" from the plan of transmigration, he must return to earth to live out the lives necessary for him to gain complete self-knowledge and Brahman-knowledge.
Through centuries of search for merit, the Hindu believers have added other religious customs. The cow is treated as a holy animal, and prayers are addressed to it. Monkeys must never be harmed, for they, too, are sacred. Some plants are addressed with prayers. The wise men of India explain this by saying that the Atman is present in every living thing. Some nearby animal might be the present life of the Atman that used to be housed by a relative of yours in an earlier life.
Gandhi -- called by his compatriots the Mahatma or "Great Soul" -- said that cow-worship was the distinctive contribution of Hinduism to the world’s religious ideas. He explained that many religions teach love of man, but that Hinduism is the only one to teach such love of animals. Therefore, many devout Hindus never eat meat. Killing an animal for meat is wrong, they feel, for the animal has as much right to live as a man.
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