Why I am a Hindu… and Why I’m Not
This essay is part of a series where I look at various faiths and explore where they have inspired me and where I have issues. Although I am a Christian, I believe that God wants us to explore and learn from other traditions as part of our spiritual journey. This is my journey, no one else’s, and the articles merely record how I see things. They are not intended to offend or convert, nor do I expect you to agree with me. I do however, appreciate feedback, friendship and further learning.
Other essays in the series:
Why I Am A Sikh… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am A Sufi… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am A Catholic… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am An Orthodox Christian… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am A Pagan… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am A Buddhist… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am A Jew… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am an Atheist… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am an Anglican… and Why I’m Not
I’m going to be blunt here. Hinduism, the third-largest faith on the planet, is the one I don’t get. With its myriad of gods and goddesses, mysterious rituals and mantras and colourful temples, it confuses my brain. And that is before I even open up the scriptures with their endless wars between ancient kingdoms and numerous encounters of mortals with the divine. Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, all with a single, charismatic founder and a grand narrative, are easier to follow. So, too Sikhism (it’s just that the narrative lasts for ten gurus, not one). Only Judaism comes close in confusion stakes, but as someone brought up in a faith born out of Judaism, then I had a head start there.
I came late to Hinduism. Okay, so I always knew the Hindus were there. There was even one in my playgroup as an infant (my first encounter with a non-Christian), but I didn’t really experience them in any great detail. My first direct encounter was probably when I went to Bali and visited a couple of temples there. There was a festival going on at one of them in which devotees brought food as offerings, but that was all I knew. Nothing was explained; it just was.
My next encounter came when I went to live in Vietnam. There, on the day of my arrival, my (Buddhist) hosts informed me that we were all going to the temple to give thanks for my safe arrival. We drove through the heavy Saigon traffic to a bustling compound with numerous gods and goddesses on offer. Weirdly though, none of them was Buddha. Confused, I asked the Indian gent standing in a sacred compound in the centre of the establishment where the Enlightened One was. “Oh no, sir, this is not Buddhist temple, sir, this is Hindu temple,” he explained.
“But the family that took me here are Buddhist!” I protested.
“Everybody here is Buddhist!” he exclaimed with a wave of his hand at the massed worshippers. “No Hindus in Vietnam. But believing is believing!”
My confusion continued when I returned to England and attended a course on world religions at Edge Hill University. That course helped me immensely in my journey of understanding with Sikhism, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, but the same enlightenment did not come with the Hindus. The presenter was an Indian doctor who decided to use his slot to show how Hindu thought is actually in line with modern medical science, hence it must be true. I’d read equally dubious claims about Islam and Christianity by Salafist propagandists and Evangelicals, and it left me cold. I didn’t want to know if it was true; I just wanted to know what it was!
My breakthrough came some years late when I took out a book from the library of the prison where I was working.
‘The Book of Krishna’ by Pavan Kumar Varma was part of a series produced by Penguin India. I’d first noticed the ‘Book of Nanak’, enjoyed it, and read the Muhammed one. That being readable too, I continued on to Krishna and what happened was unexpected. In the pages of that tiny tome, for the first time Hinduism made sense. Instead of wading through the clutter of countless deities, it focussed on one and that was one that I could understand… and relate to.
The book taught that Krishna is generally venerated in three forms. Firstly, as a rather naughty, mischievous toddler, depicted stealing from a butter jar. Then as a young lover, cavorting with the gopis (cowgirls) in a forest glade near Vrindavan. And finally as an adult, a warrior, a charioteer giving counsel to Arjuna during the Kurukshetra War.
It was the adolescent Krishna that grabbed me. I’ve always been a romantic at heart and this depiction of divinity struck a powerful chord with me. He dances with the gopis, enticing them with his flute in a dance of love called the rasa lila until they are lost in joy and pleasure. But one gopi in particular, Radha, is his sacred other half, and so he takes her and they make love by the banks of the Mathura River in an Indian reworking of Eden.
There are several things about this that struck me. Firstly, is Krishna’s consideration for the other gopis. Although Radha is his true love, he keeps them fulfilled by magically multiplying himself so that each one believes she is dancing with the god. Secondly, in an extremely conservative society, he and Radha are not married. Indeed, both go on to marry different spouses later in life, and they never marry one another. But it does not matter. Instead, they live in the moment and submit to true love. And thirdly, here love is depicted as sacred, holy, blessed. For someone brought up in a Christianity that has long demonised sex and sexual pleasure (particularly outside of marriage), that was revelatory.
In addition to learning to love Krishna (and Radha), the book taught me something else. If you want to understand Hinduism, rather than trying to comprehend the entire pantheon, take it one god at a time. Find the deity that works for you and then go deeper.
In such a vein, I continued to read the books in the series. I read all the remaining ones in the library — Kali, Ganesha and Devi. Although none touched me like Krishna had, I was still learning, understanding that, like saints, you need different deities for different situations.
I also learnt that more than one narrative can exist at the same time. Ganesha has a broken tusk. Yet why is that? In the book, no less than three alternative explanations were given. There are countless more and the Hindu devotee can accept all of them at the same time.
My explorations continued piecemeal. In 2013 I travelled to India. The aim of my trip was to visit Sikh and Sufi shrines, but, naturally, I also encountered the country’s major faith. In particular, at the end of my trip, I went to a place called Pushkar. I only visited it because it was near to Ajmer, a major Sufi shrine, yet I unexpectedly stumbled upon a place that contained an extraordinary spiritual energy. Situated around a sacred pool, are numerous temples and ghats. I remember sitting there as the sun was setting, hearing the temple bell ring whilst a Brahmin priest immersed a devotee in a timeless ritual and feeling a powerful spiritual connection that I did not understand but which was undoubtedly real.
This was Hinduism in its own landscape.
I realised that much of my incomprehension of Hinduism was due to my incomprehension of India. You cannot learn Hinduism; it is a religion of the land which gave birth to it, perhaps as long as 7,000 years ago during the Indus Valley Civilisation, and only when experienced in its proper place can it be understood. Indeed, prior to the twentieth century, believing Hindus would not leave India as the act would pollute them and separate them forever from their gods. And in Pushkar, I got that.
I began to see Hinduism differently. Not so much as Hinduism, but Hinduisms. Not a singular religion (indeed, it was only named so by the British when they invaded and decided to classify everything), but a vast and varied collection of local beliefs, paganisms if you like, with a Vedic intellectual veneer on the top as a unifying factor, similar to have Buddhism alters in the different cultures it encounters, whilst the sutras of the monks remain constant.
And this way of looking at things opened up possibilities. Some Hinduism was purely a religion of place, but other parts were more accessible. With the arrival of the Muslims in the mediaeval period, a new school of though emerged in Hinduism. Eschewing the traditional reliance on the Brahmin priestly caste, Bhakti Hindus emphasised personal devotion to a particular deity.
Perhaps the most famous exponents of the Bhakti model in the West are ISKON,[1] popularised by counter-culture figures such as George Harrison and commonly referred to as the Hare Krishnas. Rather than seeing contact with foreign cultures as polluting, the Hare Krishnas welcome converts from all races and focus their devotions on chanting Krishna mantras.
And unbeknownst to me, I actually knew a lot of these mantras off by heart.
During the 1990s, one of my favourite bands was an Indie outfit called Kula Shaker. Little did I realise that their Indian-sounding songs ‘Govinda’, ‘Tattva’, ‘Radhe Radhe’ and ‘Namami Nanda Nandanam’ were all Krishna mantras. When I discovered this, I started to explore more Hare Krishna music, such as George Harrison’s ‘Radhakrishna Temple’ recorded at the ISKON temple in London. I loved it and so, when in London I began visiting the temple, eating in its restaurant, and then sitting in the prayer hall for an evening worship session, letting the mantras chanted by a multi-racial collection of enthusiastic worshippers wash over me like a soothing tide.
So, have I become a Hindu?
Erm… no.
As with everything, there is both the good and the bad and, well, I guess, I should address the elephant in the room: caste.
Hindus believe in caste. There are four major ones — Brahmins (priests and teachers), Kshatriyas (warriors and rulers), Vaishyas (farmers, traders, and merchants) and Shudras (labourers) — which themselves can be subdivided into thousands of others. Western-orientated Hindu organisations and Western Hindus often say that caste doesn’t matter, it is a relic of the past and that it is misunderstood. Perhaps. Yet the truth remains that in India, belief in caste is strong and that it stems from Hindu teaching. And, good socialist that I am, I firmly oppose caste in every way. I do not believe in dividing up humans by birth or race, assigning them livelihoods and destinies before they even enter the world. For me, religion should empower, it should promote freedom of thought and action, not prohibit. Perhaps we do misunderstand caste in the West, but any system which tells you who you should marry and who you should not is, in my opinion, evil. And I cannot square that circle.
Even so, this is not my main barrier with Hinduism.
That is the problem which I have already spoken about. Hinduism, although a world faith, is not a universal one. Yes, these days anyone can become a Hindu, convert, chant mantras and espouse the principles. But Hinduism is a religion of a place, born of the land and wedded to it. As a person who loves and respects religions based in the landscape, I recognise this and agree with it, but the fact remains, the land of the Hindus is not mine and so there is a barrier. The names of the gods, the societal norms, the plants, and the animals, all are alien to me. When I travel to India I can partake in it, appreciate it and fall in love with it. I sit by the pool at Pushkar, hear the sacred bell, watch the ritual bathing and it makes the soul soar. But I do not live in Pushkar, I am not from there. And back in rain-sodden Stoke it all seems quite alien.
I read a book about the Pagan Druidic religion of my islands prior to Christianisation. The author stressed the many continuities with Hindu thought and rituals. The use of the trinity, the power of true and so on. Perhaps that is why I am attracted to Hinduism in some respects, but the Hinduism of today is not the religion of the Britons and is not embedded in my land. The sacred rivers are not the Thames, the Severn or the Trent, they are far away and unknown to me. The gods and goddesses may gather and dance the rasa lila in woodland groves, but the trees that surround them are the mango, the orange and the nagkessar, not the oak, the willow, or the hazel. Hindu temples in London import their stone from India and follow architectural norms formulated in Uttar Pradesh or Kerala. No Gothic or Romanesque arches can be seen. And for me, that matters.
Even so, whilst no Hindu, the faith continues to form me externally and internally. Externally, I’m still visiting the ISKON temple in London to enjoy the mantras and I’m looking to travel to India to visit Varanasi, Haridwar and possibly Vrindavan where Krishna and Radha once danced.
And internally, Hindu concepts influence how I think and live. The importance of understanding that so much of our world is but Maya (illusion), the sacred nature of love, the crucial reality of male and female being two necessary halves of the same whole and, above all, the absolute importance of living in the moment, extracting joy whilst you can and dancing blissfully through the paradise of earthly life.
Written 30/08/2023 Aberdeen to Stirling, UK
Copyright © 2023, Matthew E. Pointon
[1] The International Society for Krishna Consciousness