{"id":483,"date":"2007-12-19T09:57:53","date_gmt":"2007-12-19T16:57:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/2007\/12\/learning-from-our-religious-big-brothers-hinduism\/483\/"},"modified":"2020-01-09T05:44:23","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T12:44:23","slug":"learning-from-our-religious-big-brothers-hinduism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/2007\/12\/learning-from-our-religious-big-brothers-hinduism\/483\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning from our religious big brothers: Hinduism"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite \u00e2\u20ac\u0153doctrines\u00e2\u20ac\u009d within the LDS faith is the charge to go and seek out the good of other faiths and to bring them home to Mormonism. This is an effort to do this. If anyone out there is a true expert on Hinduism, apologies abound and corrections are welcome. <\/em><\/p>\n

The Problem of Evil has been a delightful pointy stick which many have used to argue against the existence of God. For a long time, I thought the LDS church had a unique out for this particular problem, the eternal existence of souls. I was wrong, but not in the way you may be thinking.
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\nIn Hinduism, the jiva<\/em> (soul, also sometimes used interchangeably with atman<\/em> or true \u00e2\u20ac\u0153self\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) is also without beginning or end. Most Scholars believe that Hinduism is the oldest religion in the world that is still in practice today. Many also consider the religion to be henotheistic (devoted to a single God while allowing and accepting the existence of other divine beings). The parallels with Mormonism are interesting, and seeing as Hinduism has had such a long life, compared to the relative newness of the LDS faith, it can be very worthwhile to seek out those things which are of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good report\u00e2\u20ac\u009d within the Hindu faith. <\/p>\n

One such example is Avidy\u00c4\u0081<\/em>. In the Hindu philosophy, avidy\u00c4\u0081<\/em> is the causeless source of evil in the universe, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153connotes the principle of differentiation which is implicit in human thinking. It stands for that delusion which breaks up the original unity of what is real and presents it as subject and object and as doer and result of the deed. What keeps Man captive is this avidy\u00c4\u0081<\/em>. This ignorance is not lack of erudition; it is ignorance about the nature of Being. It is a limitation that is natural to human sensory or intellectual apparatus. This is responsible for all the misery of man.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d [1]<\/p>\n

Joining this concept with LDS teachings, we could tie this easily in the ideas of pride and self-deception, and thus further into sins. Avidy\u00c4\u0081<\/em> is the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153deep and unmet need\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which springs for sin. Avidy\u00c4\u0081<\/em> is the delusion which comes from self-deception, which is, of course, being false to the true \u00e2\u20ac\u0153self\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. <\/p>\n

Further, Some Schools of thought hold that it is the eradication of avidy\u00c4\u0081<\/em> which should be the ultimate goal of every person, as it will lead automatically to the realization of the self (atman<\/em>), in context with the whole (Brahman<\/em> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a concept somewhere between Super String Theory, Divine Universal Law, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the supreme spirit\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, God, Heavenly Father, etc. ). This realization is called moksha<\/em>, which is a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153transcendence of phenomenal being\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.[2] Think of it as sort of a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153six sigma\u00e2\u20ac\u009d approach to divine improvement, where a person works on their weaknesses over the course of their life until the reach Nirvana<\/em>, or a stilling of cravings (putting off the natural man? Determinism?). Of course, in LDS thought, there is the teaching that man can not ultimately eradicate avidy\u00c4\u0081 from himself, and ultimately needs help from beyond himself to do such. This is where the Plan of Salvation and Atonement come into play in the soteriology in the LDS camp. I am currently unaware of a corollary in Hinduism, but I definitely wish I hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tossed out the Bhagavad Gita<\/em> I owned in college. <\/p>\n

[1]- here.<\/a> Interestingly, the concept of avidy\u00c4\u0081<\/em> is also found in Buddhism as well.
\n[2]- here.<\/a> For Geoff, this is related to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth and all of the suffering and limitation of worldly existence\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Pf Course, even without the concept of MMP, I think this idea is fairly compelling from an LDS worldview.
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