Last Sunday's sermon began a discussion of the sources that are part of our Principles and Purposes. We looked at our Jewish and Christian roots. We could explore "direct experience of transcending mystery and wonder;" the "words and deeds of prophetic women and men;" humanism and earth-centered traditions that move and shape our lives.
Today I want to focus on our third source that reads, "Wisdom from the world's religions, which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life." This isn't going to be an encyclopedia sermon where I say something about all the world's religious traditions that I know something, or not much, about.
We need also to explore why we have an interest in others' religions and how we might ethically and respectfully express our interest and explore Hinduism or any other religion in the world that is not directly our own.
Transcendentalist Unitarians had an interest in Hinduism in the early part of the nineteenth century, so that we might be "at peace with our own consciences and all the world." (Moby Dick, Herman Melville) They brought much of the beginnings of discussion of world religions to this country. The first book of any scholarly note to be written in this country was written by a Unitarian woman, Hannah Adams who lived from 1755-1831. Those early ventures were crude in some ways and included misinformation and disinformation.
It is hard to study and understand another religious tradition without the influence of our own frame of reference. We continue to struggle to understand one another -- to even understand what discussion with each other means -- and toward what?
Hinduism - by that name -- is not really a religion. The word "Hindu" is Arabic and came from a Muslim point of view. It is an umbrella term to cover ALL the religions "beyond the Indus River."
And, like a lot of terms given to others, like Unitarianism to nineteenth century rationalists, we end up taking on the name for ourselves because it sticks so well, even if not necessarily helpfully.
Writer E. M. Forster once wrote about the study of Hinduism: "Study it for years with the best of teachers, and when you raise your head, nothing they have told you quite fits." The religious practices and philosophies of the subcontinent of India are indeed vast and complex. But there are some underlying themes that I find useful in making entry into the wonder of religion in India.
Of course, there are Sikhs and Muslims in India and there are a few Buddhists, Christians, Jews, and a liberal group with ties to UUism call Brahmo Samaj. We sent missionaries to India in the early 1900s, as well as to Japan.
There are many religious influences in India, but mostly India is Hindu, meaning the people of India follow a variety of margas -- paths -- to moksa -- freedom from the endless cycles of death and birth. And that is important right there. Samsara, or what we name reincarnation is not about a Hindu wish to escape living, living is good. It is the repetition of death that Hindus wish to escape.
It is that Hindu religion recognizes there is something more that is deeper, richer and fuller; that our lives, lived fully, work toward the fullest possibility: freedom -- not freedom from, but freedom into. Like the joy of a drop of water joining in ultimate wholeness and freedom into the ocean. PONDER...
There are basic aims of life among most Hindus and it's clear looking at them that there is in Hinduism a profound affirmation for the life well lived and enjoyed, the life we are given. This is one of the points of close interconnection between our tradition and Hindu religion. Dharma, Artha, Kama, and Moksa are the four basic aims.
Dharma is the ground upon which a good life is lived. It is the ethical system of Hindu life, one's duties in this world. Among them is a version of the Golden Rule that last week's sermon looked at - to love our neighbors as ourselves. It is written in the Mahabharata. "Do not do to another what is disagreeable to yourself: this is the summary Law; the other proceeds from desire."
This text, the Mahabharata, includes the Bhagavad Gita that our morning's responsive reading came from; and which informed the life and work of Mahatma Gandhi, and before him Henry David Thoreau, and after him, Martin Luther King. The power of duty as commitment and risk toward what is good and right and true. It is indeed a powerful point of interconnection with values we hold dear.
So, dharma is the ethical ground of Hindu life. But Hindu life is by far not about rules and regulations. There are also the aims of Artha and Kama. The first, Artha affirms that success and wealth are good things. Striving and succeeding is good.
And the second we know most commonly from one sutra (or book) - the Kama Sutra, a book that adolescents appreciate early and the rest of us appreciate late. The book of the deep affirmation in Hinduism of the erotic, physical pleasures of life. No Puritanical, Calvinistic disgust and mistrust of the body in Hinduism here!
But Kama is not just sex, it is the joy and affirmation of pleasure in all its forms -- Artha and Kama -- success and pleasure -- grounded in ethical responsibilities.
But we Westerners haven't understood Hindu ideas and practices, not the sexual affirmation and particularly not the powerful imagery of this religious community.
In his book, Following the Equator, Mark Twain wrote of his trip to India and reported what many Americans would report today. Of the iconic imagery, the statues and frescoes across the country, Twain wrote, "And what a swarm of ...[idols] there is! The town is a vast museum of idols -- and all of them crude, misshapen, and ugly. They flock through one's dreams at night, a wild mob of nightmares."
It has always struck me as amusing, at least, that what Twain calls worthy of nothing more than the deadness of a museum, has the power to flock in his dreams. I have never gone home to nightmares from any museum trip I ever made. The power to enter the man's sleep makes the images seem pretty lively to me! But Twain didn't see it!
It's easy to miss what is powerful and lively to another. The sacred scripture of the Hindu Upanishads recognizes this human reality and writes, "You could have golden treasure buried beneath your feet, and walk over it again and again, yet never find it because you don't realize it is there. Just so, all beings live every moment in the city of the Divine, but never find the Divine because it is hidden by the well of [maya] illusion." (Chandogya)
How do we meet one another? How do we see the wonder in someone else's religious experiences? Honor them? Really see them?
Many of us want to, and try to, and hope for a better world out of this kind of deep seeing. Charles Bonney, President of the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions held in Chicago, said at the Parliament's closing: "Henceforth the religions of the world will make war not on each other, but on the giant evils that afflict mankind!" -- such aspiration in these words.
One hundred years later, and more, we are not there. But we have places where we work on it. Unitarian Universalists and many others.
One of the more popular UU religious education programs is Holidays and Holy Days for elementary school-aged children, a curriculum used here. It focuses on just what its title claims, the holidays and the holy days of various traditions around the world. On a given Sunday the children may celebrate Divali from Hinduism or Purim from Judaism. The children love it and so do the teachers.
We UUs are also deeply involved with the IARF, (International Association for Religious Freedom). The IARF was organized in 1900 to resist intolerance. It was a response to the call made at the World Parliament of Religions seven years before.
Today, with UN consultative status supporting interfaith cooperation, its members include Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Humanists, Jews, Shintoists, Sikhs, Unitarian Universalists and members of indigenous communities from more than thirty countries on four continents. The purpose of the IARF is to endorse the fundamental human right, under international law, of freedom of religion or belief. Their intent is not just to advance religion; their intent is to promote religion that is liberating. This is a very specific mission.
For example, Muslim villagers near Calcutta have begun to celebrate Divali, except for the religious offering to Hindu icons, as an act of solidarity with their Indian neighbors. These are efforts and approaches which Unitarian Universalists energetically support and affirm.
We must also remember the work we have to do within our own tradition. To encourage ourselves to support religious harmony among ourselves, that Christian and Jewish and Humanist and Pagan presences affirm the diversity we claim.
We do have "golden treasure buried beneath our feet" as it is written in the Upanishads. May we not forever walk over our golden treasure again and again, yet never find it because we don't realize it is there."
Jewish theologian and scholar, Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote words which challenge us toward our future. Whether we are exploring Hindu ideas and practices, or those ideas and practices of any other traditions, including our own: "The religions of the world are no more self-sufficient, no more independent, no more isolated than individuals or nations. Energies, experiences, and ideas that come to life outside the boundaries of a particular religion or all religions continue to challenge and to affect every religion. Horizons are wider; dangers are greater...No religion is an island. We are all involved with one another."
And Hindu scholar Diana Eck says: "We are keepers of one another's image and guardians of one another's rights. Indeed, as Martin Luther King, in our morning reading affirmed, we indeed live in a world house 'because we can never again live apart'...We 'must learn somehow to live with each other in peace.' "
To live in peace, knowing we may never again live apart. To affirm the religious impulses to liberation in all traditions. And as Hindu thinking reminds us to love, to succeed, to enjoy and strive in the heart of response-ability. May we work to that end that not another one hundred years will pass before we recognize the golden treasure beneath our feet and the world's evils in the guise of religion have passed from among us.
AMEN
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