Dharma, Yoga, Brahman and More Hinduism Sanskrit Terms Explained

What Is Hinduism?

What is Hinduism? To many in the West it’s a bizarre and alien religion teeming with multi-armed gods and irrational beliefs, crawling with holy cows and complex rituals; archaic, gaudy, and defined by bizarre and very un-Western traditions such as primitive idol worship and the despicable caste system. A big, pagan city whose winding alleyways go through districts so foreign to our own culture one might easily get confused and hopelessly lost, so better stay away. As a result Hindism, more perhaps than any other religion, is often reduced to cliché, prejudice, and outright fallacy.

That’s why I prefer the Russian Doll image of Hinduism to the Big City, the outer and more conspicuous, sometimes bizarre form of each separate doll peeling away to gradually lead to an inner, deeper, single Truth common to each one. Behind the seemingly bizarre outer appearance of Hinduism lies a quieter, less conspicuous, more abstract core, a philosophical mind-set not usually visible or comprehensible at first glance, and inaccessible through our everyday language. To get beneath the skin of these deeper concepts it’s a good idea to learn a few Sanskrit terms: words for which there are no English translations. I’ve chosen ten which, it seems to me, are essential for a basic understanding of the essence of Hinduism.

Written by Sharon Maas

http://sonsofgods.blogspot.com

Atman

Atman is the individual soul, the life-force within you. Your personality, your intellect, your emotions, are but the crust of who you are: the Atman is beyond all these, the life of your life. It is pure spirit that remains unchanged throughout all the changes that you will experience all through your life. It stays the same in your sleep and your waking state; it is the “me” that stays constant even as you move from babyhood to childhood to adolescence, through adulthood to old age, and then departs at your body’s death. Atman is the immutable witness to all these life stages, yet not defined by or confined to any one of them. It is the essence of who you are as a human being, pure, free, and unaffected by anything that occurs, a silent witness that watches through the body's senses, yet is not moved, either to happiness or sadness, based on what it sees.

Brahman

Brahman is the Sanskrit word that is sometimes translated as God; an inaccurate rendering, for there is nothing anthropomorphic about Brahman. It is not a God sitting up in heaven and looking down and judging us poor humans. Brahman cannot be described in words, for it is beyond words, and beyond human concept. It is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent; it is everlasting.

The Upanishads describe Brahman as “the nature of truth, knowledge and infinity." It is the ultimate reality, independent of all phenomena and at the same time the source and ultimate ground of all phenomena. It is not only the primary cause of all material reality: it IS that reality, the essential substance of all that exists in time and space, the microcosm and the macrocosm, from the tiniest particle of an atom to the largest bodies in the Universe. Brahman is all there is; hidden from our eyes only through illusion and false identity.

Yoga

In the West, the word Yoga has established itself as a fitness regime whose goal is a better and more beautiful body. That’s actually the antithesis of what the word really means.

Yoga in Sanskrit means “yoke”, and yoga is the means by which the individual mind, the Atman, yokes itself to Brahman, the Universal Mind, and knows its true identity as one with that substance. The asanas (postures) are no more than a means to an end: Hatha Yoga works on the mind through the body.

Yoga considers the body to be, quite literally, the physical manifestation of the unconscious mind, the most gross form of mind. Every cell is suffused with consciousness through the nervous system, so the easiest, most logical place to start with the transformation of mind is with the body. The body is our first identity, so that’s where we start.

Dharma

Hinduism is often described as not so much a religion as a way of life; the final goal of that way of life is Yoga, yoke, the merging of Atman with Brahman. All our efforts, day in and day out, should be with that one goal in mind; all our small individual goals are merely milestones on the way to that final goal. The sum total of that all-embracing striving towards a final goal is summed up in the word Dharma. Put simply, dharma is a composite of many concepts. It includes the idea of duty, righteousness, right action and inner attitude; and yet it is more than the sum of these parts. To act within dharma is to do the right thing, right now, taking into consideration all aspects of that action, past, present and future, as well as individual temperament and needs, and the needs of others affected by that action; it is to act unselfishly, because it is right to do so, regardless of whether it is profitable or pleasurable, and even if doing so brings us into disrepute, defeat or danger.

Dharma is the spine that holds society upright. When each individual lives according to his or her dharma, society can function like a well-oiled machine; stability and happiness are its characteristics. When, on the other hand, we each live only for our own gratification—well, we have the results right before our eyes.

Seva

Seva means service. Just as a good Hindu’s life is defined by dharma, so too is dharma defined by service. The great Indian poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore put it this way: “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

This is because Brahman is everywhere and in all things and in all people; therefore, the best way to “connect” Atman with it is to surrender it to Brahman through service. In seva we act not for personal gratification, but to give ourselves, our small egos that are by definition selfish, to the whole, to Brahman; by doing so we expand ourselves, take on the qualities of Brahman, which are strength, love and joy. We become bigger, better people. Brahman might be everywhere; but a good Hindu knows that It is most present in the human form: to serve It is to serve humanity, and to serve humanity is to serve Brahman.

Bhakti

Bhakti is the path of devotion; and it is the motor that drives our seva. It means turning the entire mind towards Brahman in deepest humility and love; to melt in the fire of that love, so that whatever we do, we do for Him. He is the true object of our service. In Bhakti there is a clear dualistic approach to God: here I am, small, flawed and powerless. You are my being, You are my saviour, You are all-love, all-power, all-healing. I give myself to You; I give myself entirely.

In most cases, Brahman is loved and worshipped under a specific name and form. This is the reason there are so many deities in Hinduism: since we are all different, it is only reasonable that we should love God under whichever name and form we are most drawn to. God can be a Father or a Mother; he can be a child or a friend. He can be one of the great avatars, Krishna or Rama, or a god with an elephant’s head (Ganesh), or we may align ourselves with Hanuman, the monkey god and Rama’s greatest devotee. He can be the great Destroyer, Siva; or Siva’s consort, Saraswati. Or he can take the form of a Guru, a human being who has in him or herself already attained oneness with Brahman, and thus can guide us there. The main thing is the flow of devotion, for it is that flow that sweeps away the detritus of selfhood that separates the loved from the beloved.

Gnana

However, not all of us have the temperament or the inclination of a devotee, and those of a more intellectual mentality are sometimes drawn to the path of Gnana (also spelt Jnana). Gnana is a branch of Yoga called the Path of Knowledge; but the knowledge referred to here is not academic knowledge, but Self-Knowledge.

Our everyday consciousness is that of ego, and, it is said, the ego is as mighty as a thousand elephants, yet it is nothing more than a thick cloud of thoughts and emotions that hide our true identity, Brahman, from our awareness. That ego is constantly on the prowl for sensory gratification; its nature is to be turned outwards, towards the world, all in the quest for fulfilment. The path of Gnana requires hours, years, decades of retraining the mind to seek its fulfilment within: to identify no longer with the mental activity of the ego, but with the pure, infinite Brahman behind it: our true identity.

Dhyana

Dhyana is meditation. It is the direct means through which the Atman is consciously linked with the Brahman. The mind is habitually concerned with thinking, and in thinking we are concerned with all the myriad events going on in the world: the personal as well as the political. The mind is turned outwards; it is scattered in a thousand thoughts chasing each other without cease. In dhyana we guide that mind away from its activity and turn it to look inwards, to silence. There it can discover the Atman, the pure spirit untouched by thought. Though there are many techniques of meditation, they all finally have this one aim: calming the mind, so that we may discover that part of ourselves that lies beneath the crust of selfhood, and establish ourselves more and more in the sense of harmony that comes from within.

One Truth Common

The Russian Doll concept of Hinduism means that there is one truth common to all religions. Hinduism incorporates the belief that the outer form each religion takes is secondary to this inner truth; that each religion, whether Hindu or non-Hindu, is therefore true and good and valid in its own right; that belonging to a particular religion, either through birth or conversion or selection, does not necessitate the denial of others. Every manifestation of the divine is, to the Hindu, worthy of reverence, for it is a hook by which each individual is drawn back to that central core of truth: the truth of him or herself as also a manifestation of the divine. To the Hindu each of us is, in fact, a Russian Doll, for in each of us, at the core of our being, beneath all the layers of self we know so well, lives the divine.

All About the Hindu Holiday, Krishna Janmashtami

This is the celebration of Krishna, the beloved earthly avatar of the Hindu god, Vishnu. Read next feature >