You Can Have What You Want:

(Huston Smith's interpretation of the fundamental meaning of Hinduism) 1) Pleasure "If pleasure is what you want, seek it intelligently" Pleasure is viewed as a positive, legitimate desire in Hinduism However, it does not satisfy completely b/c it is too privatized and fleeting 2) Worldly Success Wealth, fame, and power Like pleasure, worldly success is also viewed as a positive desire However, it likewise does not completely satisfy for the following reasons: 1. Competitive and Precarious (One's success come's at the expense of anothers) 2. Insatiable ("Poverty consists not in the decrease of one's possessions, but in the increase of one's greed") 3. Self-Centered 4. Ephemeral 3) Duty/Service Allows for respect and gratitude However, it is also limited b/c community is finite, and no matter how dutiful you are, the community can never be perfected, duty can never be finally fulfilled or satisfied. 4) Liberation The true and ultimate desire of all human beings Absolute Being, Absolute Knowledge, Absolute Joy [The first two paths (Pleasure and Worldly Success) are Paths of Desire. The second two are Paths of Renunciation.]

Life's Fundamental Limitations:

1) Limitations on Joy Physical Pain (can be remedied through medicine and science) Frustrated Desire/Psychological Pain (can be remedied through detachment from desire) Boredom/Spiritual Pain 2) Ignorance Can be remedied through wisdom ("knowing of That the knowledge of which brings knowledge of everything") 3) Finitude/Restricted Being Can be remedied by moving beyond our fixation on the present

Four Paths of Yoga:

(Religion treated not as a belief, but as a technique) Yoga -- "method of training designed to lead to integration or union"

 1st Step is to cleanse oneself of impurities 2nd Step is to cultivate habits such as non-injury, truthfulness, non-stealing, self-control, cleanliness, contentment, self-discipline, compelling desire. 1) Jnana Yoga (knowledge) the path to oneness with the Godhead through knowledge an intuitive discernment that transforms the knower ("to know the good is to do the good") Key = Discrimination 1. Learning factual truth 2. Thinking -- move from factual truth to reflective truth, from concept to realization 3. Detachment -- to distinguish between the infinite self (atman) and the transient finite self; to move from self-identification and self-concern to identification with Being as a whole, and a concern for All 2) Bhakti Yoga (Love) the path to the Godhead through Love the most popular of the four paths of Yoga powered by the emotions rather than reason Begins with the insistence on God's otherness or transcendence Goal is not identification with the Godhead (as in Jnana Yoga), but adoration of God God is thought of not as an impersonal ground of Being or as a concept, but instead, as being personal with distinct attributes Two General Approaches of Bhakti Yoga: 1. Japam -- the meditative practice of repeating God's name 2. Ishta -- adopted a form or particular embodiment of the divine 3) Karma Yoga (Work) the path to the Godhead through work 4) Raja Yoga (Psychophysical) "the royal road to reintegration" practicing prescribed mental exercises and observing their subjective/spiritual effects Eight Steps 1. Five Abstentions (injury, lying, stealing, sensuality, greed) 2. Five Observances (cleanliness, contentment, self-control, studiousness,contemplation) 3. Asanas (postures) -- for example, the lotus position 4. Mastery of Respiration 5. No Sense Bombardments 6. Concentration (to focus the mind on one thing only) 7. Meditation (the duality of the knower and the known, or of the subject and the object is resolved into a complete unity) 8. Samadhi (complete absorption into God, all forms pass away, to think no-thing)

Four Stages of Life:

1. Student 2. Householder

3. Retirement 4. Sannyasin

Four Castes in Society:

1. 2. 3. 4. Brahmins (seers) -- intellectual and spiritual leaders Kshatriyas -- administrators Vaishyas -- producers and workers Shudras -- followers or servants [Untouchables]

Hindu 'Theology':
1st Rule: to learn what to leave out (neti . . . neti) Brahman -- Hindu name for the supreme reality Nirguna Brahman -- God without attributes Saguna Brahman -- God with attributes Brahma -- Creator God Vishnu -- Preserver God Shiva -- Destroyer God

Hindu Anthropology:
Jiva -- individual soul Body is thought of as a garment or a shelter ("Worn-out garments are shed by the body; wornout bodies are shed by the dweller") Samsara -- reincarnation, transmigration of the soul Karma -- moral law of cause and effect; the absolute governing principle in both spiritual and material matters 1. Complete Moral Responsibility -- everyone gets exactly what they deserve 2. No such thing as Luck or Chance Atman -- the animating force within each individual

Hindu Cosmology:
1. Just World ruled by Karma 2. Middle World -- training ground for human spirit 3. Metaphysically world is not self-existent, world is grounded in a more fundamental reality 4. Maya -- world is illusory 5. Lila -- world is play