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4 . The Religions of Man - Basic Concepts in Hinduism
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Dr. Huston Smith, series lecturer, explains the basic concepts of Hinduism. The discussion will touch upon Brahman the Hindu God and Hindu teachings toward man, reincarnation and the universe.
With the recent rebirth of interest in spirituality and religion, and its effect on the life people live, the 1955 NET Series, Religions of Man is a timely and informative example of early educational television. The programs give a clear insight into the great living religious of our world: Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Dr. Huston Smith discusses their origin, founders and what each teaches as to life’s meaning and the way to its fulfillment.
The first college accredited course given on TV in St. Louis, this series features Dr. Huston Smith, at the time, the associate professor of philosophy at Washington University.
Born in China of missionary parents, Dr. Huston Smith has had first-hand acquaintance with the religions of both East and West. Dr. Smiths graduate studies were completed at the University of California and the University of Chicago, where he received his PhD in 1945. He was president of the Missouri Philosophy Association and is the author of The Purpose of Higher Education, published in 1955 by Harper and Brothers. Dr. Smith taught at the University of Denver and the University of Colorado before joining the Washington University faculty. His course on The Religions of Man grew from 13 to 140 students in the first seven years he taught it. The 17 episodes that comprise this series were originally recorded on kinescope, and was broadcast nationally to millions of viewers.
For other films of Huston Smith, Please visit www.HustonSmith.org
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Transcript
Introduction
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the religions of man with dr. Houston
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Smith
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[Music]
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last week we were discussing the Hindu concept of man's destiny as being union
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with God and we're talking about the four paths to this union the path of
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knowledge the path of work the path of love and the path of psychological
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exercises in connection with the latter you may remember I went through the
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routine of the posture which is normally assumed as conducive to the mental
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states which they are trying to bring about you remember it the spine erect
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the legs folded in the lap the hands to settle in the lab now ridiculously
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enough of all that I said about God last week it was this mundane matter of the
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posture of the body which seem to have captured the fancy of the community the
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globe had a light and slight little item on it and the bulk of my male during
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that week centered one way or another on this item I'd like to share with you one
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of the charming letters which I got in this connection significantly enough
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it's on a little note card which is has printed on the outside just of kwikki
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and here is how it reads dear dr. Smith I shall be very brief or I can't write
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well in my present position I have my left foot in my right pocket and my
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right leg pretzeled around my left how do i unwrap I am eagerly awaiting
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next week's show hopefully mrs. Edward Joel well this is a quizzical note which
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I enjoyed very much but I bring it in for purposes other other than that
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really I bring it in because it raises what is really a very serious point in a
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way although this is in a very light thing people do get into trouble in the
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practice of the yoga's they get into real trouble they find themselves
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bogging down not making any progress as they feel or long stretches periods of
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aridity there sometime referred to and whenever this happens whenever people
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get into trouble this phrases to very serious questions one is will I make it
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will I get through to my destination and the other is how long do I have to
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achieve my goal now it's these questions that I would like to turn to this
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evening in order to get the Hindu view on these questions however it's
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necessary for us to introduce some of the basic philosophical concepts in
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Hinduism and that will be the task which is before us on this third and final
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lecture on Hinduism now let's begin with these two questions will I break through
Two Questions
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well I make my destination which is liberation of the human spirit union of
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the spirit with God and second how long do I have to do this job it will help us
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to get the Hindu view on this if we look first at the Western
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answer to these questions what the Western religions say about this matter
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will I make it will I to use the usual religious parlance will I get to heaven
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well the Western answer as we all know is some do and some don't
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there's a fighting chance is a very good chance if I put myself into it
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wholeheartedly that I will attain the goal but there's never any thought of
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inevitability about this process some are lost and they are really lost lost
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forever there is in the West the concept of eternal damnation there is therefore
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a kind of irrevocable quality about this question and the answer to it
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as to the question of how long do I have the West's answer again is for men you
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to all of us I have one lifetime the duration the span of my present life
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during which I will either reach or I will forever miss the goal of life now
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these two factors the factor of the possibility of missing the goal plus the
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fact of one lifetime to reach it or to miss it introduces a kind of faithful
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quality to the Western sense of time this comes out in many many ways in the
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poignancy that suffuses the West as it thinks of time whitehead puts it in the
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phrase of the perpetual perishing of experience the poets are familiar with
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this snow falls upon a river white for a moment gone forever this time
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consciousness gives a sense of urgency to for example 17th century love poet
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gather ye rosebuds while ye may or again while we are yet to cane
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come my Kareena let us go a make throughout the West then there is a
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sense of the urgency of time pressing in upon man although now if we go to the
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east we find that the attitude the whole mental environment is very different
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with regard to this matter of time let's come back now to the two questions
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well I achieve the ultimate destiny the highest destiny of my life and the Hindu
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answer is yes you will there is in
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Hinduism no sense of eternal damnation but in the end everyone achieves the
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highest goal of which his life is capable I was interested very much one
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of the first years I was at Washington University there was a Buddhist in the community I was new to the community
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then and I don't even remember his name he's left st. Louis as far as I know he
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came out to discuss Buddhism before a
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student group I realized we're talking about Hinduism now but in this matter
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the concepts are identical so it serves our purposes just as well that he was a
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Buddhist I remember he was talking about Nirvana this concept of the highest goal
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and indicating its beauties its glories there was on the front row a football
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player rather large burly but interested
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in the matters and after this Buddhist had completed his presentation this
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football player was the first to raise his hand for a question and he was called upon and he said what if I don't
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happen to want to reach nirvana and the Buddhist replied in that case it will
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take you a little longer well this is typical it speaks directly to the Indyk
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point of view on this and if you haven't cultivated the for enlightenment this will take you a
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little longer but sooner or later you will come to this taste and in the end
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you will get there also well we see them
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a basic difference with regard to time with regard to how many will reach
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destiny the human destiny as to the question now of how long I have to reach
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my goal again the Indic question answer is very different from the West rather than being one lifetime
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the Indic answer is that I have as much time as I need now how can this be well
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this brings us to one of those basic philosophical concepts which we must
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introduce into the picture this evening it's a concept that we've all heard about in connection with India it's the
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concept of reincarnation what does it
What Does It Mean
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mean well look at the word this carnate has to do with the body and re of course
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and in is coming into Andry is again what it means is that the spirit of man
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is not in de sol y ibly wedded to a single human body that on the contrary
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the soul of man moves through passes through a succession of human bodies
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from the Indic point of view a single lifetime is far too short to learn the
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lessons the basic lessons which we are here in life to learn it takes a number
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of these to accomplish that job and therefore since the body lasts only a
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very short time a number of bodies are needed the concept to put it rather
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crudely is like that of our body passing
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through a number of suits of clothes when we wear suit of clothes we don't figure that our
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life is through we simply add on a new suit of clothes similarly to carry over
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the analogy the spirit of man dwells in a body but when that body decades then
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this spirit simply Don's a new body now
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what are we to think of this concept is it something that I don't say that we
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can believe but is it something that we in the West can take seriously belief is
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another matter well I'm not here to argue the case but I think it is worth
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noting that many of the great thinkers of the West have at least entertained
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this idea as a serious possibility from Plato to origin from Blake to
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Schopenhauer from Burma Kant and Swedenborg to Browning Emerson and
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Whitman these are some of the names in the West who as I say have considered
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this possibility with various degrees of acceptance but all taking it as a
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serious possibility but we're not here to talk about that the extent to which
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the West degrees let's continue with the east side of the Indians believed in
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this doctrine of reincarnation well I think they would put it this way first
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of all on theoretical grounds people are different we come up against that
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stubborn fact time and time again they have different capacities different
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interests different moral conditions I've known people that seem to have been
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born sweet you can almost say and others who just have a terrible time in life
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now how are you going to explain the vast range of difference in human
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possibilities we have musicians Mozart's and Beethoven's who very young without
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the elaborate training take too mu with great facility well the Western
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interpretation is based on two things first of all the idea of environment and
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heredity I would say that we in the West are thanking our interpretation of these
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differences on these two concepts environment and heredity well here the
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Indians would simply say well that may be so you may be right that those two
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could exhaustively account for these differences but you haven't by any means
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prove the case and yet that these two factors can do the accounting job and
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therefore we would simply insert as a third contributing factor this residue
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of tendencies of inclinations which have
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been built up in some way out of past experiences now there's another reason
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that's the theoretical point I think they would want to suggest but they
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would also I think say that there is a moral point too and that is that without
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some sort of concept like this it is very difficult indeed to argue to
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maintain the case for a moral universe because people simply do not have the
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same opportunity some are born handicapped in one way or another and
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either you have to say this is just chance someone got the hard breaks
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either you have to just dismiss it to chant or if you're going to sustain the
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moral factor you will have to say that somehow responsibility for that was
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developed in their past lives and also that what they do in this life will
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bring them if they react to their challenge in a creative way to a better condition in the life to come there are
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then I think they would want to say to reasons or at least these two reasons
Do We Return At Once
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for entertaining this as a possibility now let me ask another question do we
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from the Hindu point of view do we return at once that is are we reborn
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when we die are we reborn into another body at once and their answer is no here
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we need to really get a simple diagram of their view of the universe its
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centers in this world as we know it the world of action and they would say this
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world of experience here and now but that's not all there is to reality above
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this world there are finer worlds these
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are also material worlds but they are too subtle in their material nature to
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be seen by the eye or picked up by the instrument also below this realm of
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action this world as we know it there are lower worlds now when the spirit of
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man leaves a body from the Hindu point of view if it has lived a good life it
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will go to one of the upper world if it is live poorly it will go to the bottom one of the lower world where the
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experiences are less pleasant but these upper and lower worlds are not worlds of
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action you don't do anything in these worlds these are simply realms of
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experience where if you have lived well you enjoy the fruit of your action if
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you have lived not so well then you suffer the consequences for a duration
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but after staying the duration in one of these realms then you return again into
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the realm of action and if you lived well in the past life you will be reborn
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with more favourable dispositions and Kinder's salvation however according to
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the basic indian view lies outside of all this because this is all material
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ultimately when liberation comes the spirit is relieved of all material
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incumbencies and then he enters into direct union with God now while we're on
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this cosmology let me just introduce a couple of other points about it so we
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can get the Hindu perspective there is in the Hindu outlook what they call the
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day of Brahma and the night of Brahma by that they mean that this material world
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isn't constant rather it's sort of like a gigantic accordion it will swell out
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and expand for a period a long period but then after having been in this
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expanded state it will then collapse and go into what they call the night of
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Brahma or God the night of Brahma in which it is in pure potentiality it is
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latent now there are some very interesting parallel between this view
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and contemporary scientific views I have here a little note from the Scientific
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American of last summer and here is what this note said about the universe thus
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we conclude that our universe has existed for an eternity of time but
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until about five billion years ago it was collapsing uniformly from a state of
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infinite rarefaction that is that it was returning into this state which the
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Hindus would call the night of Brahma that 5 billion years ago it arrived at a
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state of maximum compression in which the density of all this matter may have been as great as that of the particles
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packed in the nucleus of the atom that since 5 billion years ago it has been
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expanding I introduced this as an interesting item in itself because one
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at the time chronology in the Puranas the Hindu texts of thousands of years
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ago they put the date the duration of the current day of Brahma as being about
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four billion years and this coincidence between their their hypothesis of four
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billion years for the present outflowing state of the universe and the scientific
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view of the Western world as coming to five billion years is a very striking it
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seems to me convergence in the two outlets well we've talked now about the idea of
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reincarnation and the worldview which this presupposes I want now to ask
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another question and this is the question of what effect our destiny as
Karma
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we move through these various bodies and here we come to a second key term that
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we must introduce to the picture and this is the concept of karma karma
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briefly is the law of cause and effect as this pertains to the moral and
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spiritual realm this is something we're very keen about cause and effect our
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Western science has made us very alert to ideas of cause and effect
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well the Hindus here are extending this law applying it to the realm of man's
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moral and spiritual life as well well we do the same thing we have in our own
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tradition such phrases as as a man sows so shall he reap we have to the idea so
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a bought and reap an act so an act and reap a habit so a habit and reap a
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character so carry and repr destiny well this is essentially the idea of karma but they
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carry this to absolutely complete turn and what I mean by that is they would
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say that a man is fully responsible for his present condition where he is in his
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present state is the result of where he what he has fought and what he has done
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in the pack people they say are constantly trying to what the
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psychologists call project they project the blame upon people outside of
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themselves they're reluctant we're reluctant to take responsibility for our
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acts or for our deeds but according to this doctrine of karma or the universal
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law moral law of cause and effect we can't blame anyone else ever for our
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condition because our condition has been built up by what we have thought and
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what we have done every act has its equal and opposite react upon us every
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action that we perform on the external world is a kind of chisel blow on our
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character building it shaking it according to the way in which we deserve
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to arrive because of how we have lived there is then in this view no room for
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counting on the brakes in life here again is what people how many people go
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through life awaiting waiting for some great moment when the brakes will come
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to them when they will be called up on the quiz program and will give the right
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answer and $5,000 or something will come tumbling into their lap if you live
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waiting for the brakes the Hindus would say you missed the purpose you missed
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the point of life because ultimately nothing depends on the brakes their fundamental assertion on this
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point is there is no chance or accident
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all right now these them are two of the
Conclusion
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key ideas which underlie the Hindu
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concept of life and religion that's me now as we come into the closing minutes
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of this third and last lecture on Hinduism try to recapitulate some of the
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basic theses in their religion first of all the Hindu view of God ultimately God
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is imminent he is beyond all we can think or even
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dream but this doesn't help too much
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because we need to imagine him we need to think of him in some way a CS Lewis
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the British literary figure Oh said something very pertinent on this point
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he says that when he was small his parents asked him told him as a matter of fact to think of God and in as
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infinite because all forms would limit him he said I tried I tried as hard as I
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could but the closest I could come to thinking of infinity was an infinite sea
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of gray Cassiopeia well the Hindus would say would agree yes the mind reaches out
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after symbols and there's nothing wrong in that and therefore it's all right to symbolize God here is one
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symbolization right here the figure of Shiva that we've seen many times it's
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alright to think of these images but they must be reminded of God as the
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bhagavad-gita says the countless gods are only my million faces ultimately the
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highest symbol is the symbol that we have encountered before of
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signifying infinite existence infinite awareness infinite list this is gone now
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next the Hindu idea of salvation we have seen is union with God there are however
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two ways in which this union of the spirit with God is conceived in Indian
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religious thought one is the idea of complete merger the image here is of a
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salt doll who went down to test the temperature of the sea he plunged in and
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he dissolved so to the spirit of man in one view merges completely with the
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infinite the other view is it retains a slight distinction and as they say it in
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that form I want to taste sugar I don't want to be sugar well this in a few brief three brief and
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inadequate lectures I have tried to distill the results of about a decade of
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trying to understand the Hindu outlook on life only I could be fully aware of
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how sketchy or inadequate has been some of you will leave the matter here some
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will have been stimulated to look further for yourself but tonight as we leave Hinduism let me close with the
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climactic assertions of this religion upman is Brahma the soul of man is
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divine that art thou as the Upanishads
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put it he indeed the Lord who pervades all regions it is he again who is born
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as child and he will be born in the future he stands behind all persons and
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his faces every way the self luminous Lord who is in fire who is in water who
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has entered into the whole world who is in plants within trees who is in the heart of every man to that Lord let
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there be adoration
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[Music]
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[Music]
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the preceding program was distributed by the educational television and radio Center this is national Educational
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Television [Music]
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you
