Hinduism And Salvation

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India’s first Vice President, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, said "Hinduism is not just a faith. It is the union of reason and intuition that can not be defined but is only to be experienced. Evil and error are not ultimate. There is no Hell, for that means there is a place where God is not, and there are sins which exceed his love." (Hinduism, 2008). The Hindu religion focuses on four key pieces that lead one to salvation - personal gods, karma, reincarnation, and moksha (spiritual liberation). In this paper, I will demonstrate how Hinduism is a plausible religion, and how it compares and contrasts to the Christian faith that I was brought up believing.

Hindus believe that there is not only one God, but many. It is estimated that there are 333 million deities in the Hindu faith. (Fisher, 2003, 79). The reason that there are so many gods is because those of the Hindu faith worship the godliness in everything. As Christians, we believe that the world was created by God, and that everything in it was developed by him with one master plan. We are taught to believe in one God, and to not worship any false idols or other gods. In contrast, Hindus believe that every living thing warrants its own worship. Ramanuja, a Hindu dualist, believed that there is always a difference between humans and god. However, he believed that we are all bodies of god, and therefore we are guardians of the world. (Carruthera, 2008). I was recently talking to a person I know of the Hindu faith, wondering how it is possible to have so many gods and how one could ever be expected to know or even be aware of so many gods. She told me that Hindus are not expected to know all of the gods – no one is. She put the Hindu’s perspective of god in a much simpler form for me. For example, a Hindu person could be walking down the road and see a rock. It could be the most beautiful rock that person has ever seen. So, that person will pick up the rock and bring it home to place on their altar. The person will then pray to that rock, considering it a personal god that is meant for them to worship.

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