ROMINA JAIRAH M.

SANTOS HUB11 09/14/18

HW IN UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

Hinduism is a religion that originated in India and is still practiced by most of its inhabitants, as well as
by those whose families have migrated from India to other parts of the world. It is considered as the
world’s third largest religion after Christianity and Islam. Hindus often focus on individual disciplines
such as meditation, yoga, chants, and the burning of incense of the deities. Hinduism is largely an Eastern
religion, about 90 percent of all Hindus live in India. It is also one of the most diverse and complex, having
millions of gods. Hindus have a wide variety of core beliefs and exist in many different sects. Hinduism is
a major world religion, not merely by virtue of its many followers estimated at more than 700 million but
also because of its profound influence on many other religions during its long, unbroken history, which
dates from about 1500 BC. The corresponding influence of these various religions on Hinduism, it has an
extraordinary tendency to absorb foreign elements has greatly contributed to the religion's system, the
wide variety of beliefs and practices that it encompasses. Moreover, the geographic, rather than
ideological, basis of the religion. The fact that it comprises whatever all the people of India have believed
and done has given Hinduism the character of a social and doctrinal system that extends to every aspect
of human life. Hindus believe that karma is the foundation of life. It unites all living things and is the
defining energy in the universe’s cycle of cause and effect. Karma has been described as the sum or
essence of an individual derived from past and present thoughts and actions. It is what you have earned,
and therefore it determines your future. Hindus also view life as regular rather than linear. Each
individual’s existence involves a continuous cycle of birth, death, and rebirth known as reincarnation.

In this cycle, people are not reincarnated as only people. A person’s soul may take the form of an animal
in the next life. Because of this, most Hindus are vegetarians, refusing to eat animals as they, too, have
souls that are reaping the results of their karma. Though these Hindus worship different idols, there are
many Hindus who believe in one God and perceive in these different Gods and Goddesses as different
images of the same one God. According to their beliefs idolatry is the wrong interpretation of Hinduism.
Hinduism, the world's oldest religion, has no beginning it precedes recorded history. It has no human
founder. It is a mystical religion, leading the devotee to personally experience the Truth within, finally
reaching the successful point of consciousness where man and God are one.