What Comes Around-Goes Around

You have heard it. What comes around, goes around.

This saying takes on new meaning when looked at in terms of comparative religion. Recently I returned from India. There I met a number of wonderful people who were Hindus and Sikhs. These people were open, and good hearted. As preparation for my visit to India, I reread the Bhagavad-Gita and a portion of the Upanishads. There are between 850 million to 1 billion Hindus in the world.

Hinduism is a pluralistic religion. Some have described it as the umbrella over all religions. Hinduism teaches that there are many paths to Reality. When Hinduism came into contact with Islam in the course of its development , there was conflict. Islam taught that there was one God and Mohammed was his Prophet. Many of the adherents of Islam, but not all, were in the North India and eventually the Northern Islamic portion of India became known as Pakistan. The conflicts between Islam and Hinduism are deep much like the conflicts between Islam and Judaism in the Mid-East.

At the heart of Hinduism are the concepts of karma, dharma and samsara. Dharma refers to fate, one's role in life, one's essential attributes. Your role in your life is your dharma. Karma is the measure of how well you fulfill your role in life.

According to Hinduism , this role in life is played over and over. You can improve your lot in life by playing the game of life well. You can can also be demoted in life or the next life by not playing it well. Your essence is reincarnated over and over until you get so high in the game of life, that it is no longer necessary to be reincarnated.

Some statements from Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita are:

Just as the embodied self enters child-hood, youth, and old age,
so does it enter another body. (Second Teaching.)

Men who are lucid go upward;
Men of passion stay in between;
Men of dark inertia,
Caught in vile ways, sink low. (Fourteenth Teaching.)

In the Upanishads, it is written:

As a heavily laden cart creaks as it moves
the body groans under its burden when
a person is about to die. When the body grows weak
through old age or illness, the Self
separates himself as a mango or fig or banyan fruit
frees itself from the stalk,
and returns the way he came to begin another life.

In India there is great poverty. There are also those who are vastly wealthy. The teachings of Hinduism help to promote the acceptance of one's lot in life. In essence, you experience your lot in life because of your past actions. Every action has a reaction in this life or the next. You are poor because of the choices in your past life. You can improve your lot in the next life by accepting your proper lot in this life.

If the teachings of Hinduism were not accepted, there might be a revolution. The poor would not wait until the next life. Was it Marx or Hegel, who said that "religion was the opium to the people." Nonetheless, Hinduism give hope to many Indian people who believe that if they play the role of life well in this life, their lot will be improved in the next life.

HarleyDad is a follower of Christ. Therefore, I see many differences between Christianity and Hinduism. At the same time, I have Hindu friends that I respect. And that is the reason that I write what I do. Most Christians do not understand the beliefs held by vast numbers of the world's population. It is my hope that Christ will birth in us a love for people.

In the Indian tradition, there is the belief that one of the Apostles made it to India and died there. That apostle was St. Thomas. Therefore Christians in India even believe that they have an early connection to the early church. More about that later.