What is Sanathana Dharma / Hinduism?
How to become a Practising Hindu?
The way of life envisaged for the people of Bhaarath (India) by the divine incarnations, and by their enlightened great sages and saints of yore who had fully aligned to the Supreme Being, from time immemorial is known as “SANATHANA DHARMA”.
‘Sanathana’ in Sanskrit means eternal, everlasting, non-changing, and ‘Dharma’ means a comprehensive righteous way of life. Therefore, Sanathana Dharma simply means, “a way of life that leads human beings in the spiritually evolutionary direction (towards higher spiritual orders of life and ultimately towards Moksha i.e., the eternal and everlasting state in the Supreme Being/ God/ Universal Consciousness by dissolving oneself into IT )”.
Dharma never means Religion as professed in the ordinary sense. Religion is a set of Do’s and Don’ts prescribed rightly or wrongly by it’s founder for his followers demanding unquestioning faith and loyalty to his teachings, and with certain punishments for not following them. In this sense, Sanathana Dharma is NOT a religion, for it has neither a founder nor a beginning. It is as natural as Nature is. Truly, there cannot be one mortal man laying foundation for a way of life for an entire community/ humanity.
Further, Sanathana Dharma is not wedded to or limited to any one man’s spiritual thought process. It is the collective spiritual wisdom (amalgam) of several divine incarnations, and, infinite number of enlightened great sages, saints, and philosophers of Bhaarath, from time immemorial. Therefore, it is NOT a religion but a spiritually cultural way of life of Hindus in a very broader sense. It is Eternal and Universal as nature is, and all encompassing, and always catering to the evolutionary instincts of human beings at varied levels.
“Sanathana Dharma” is also known as Hinduism.
It is generally believed that the invaders from the northwest frontier of the subcontinent who invaded Bhaarath in the recent historical time, called the civilization beyond the Sindhu River as Hindu and it became the name of Sanathana Dharma.
Sanathana Dharma envisages four directive principles i.e., DHARMA (a comprehensive righteous way of living), KARMA (The sum of good and bad actions that binds an entity to the creation, or the world again and again), PUNARJANMA (rebirth to workout one’s accumulated karma of past lives) and MOKSHA (disseminating into the Supreme Being/ God forever without any further birth/rebirth).
One who leads life in accordance with Dharma (righteous way of living) i.e., living in complete harmony with nature, respecting every aspect of nature, following the divine principles like love, compassion, non-violence mentally and physically except for self-protection, or for protecting the dependents, or for establishing the righteousness (Dharma like Mahabhaaratha war), and charity, doing allotted or accepted duties in the right and dedicated way (application, dedication, and discipline), service to the SUPREME BEING by way of serving the fellow-beings, abstaining from cheating or foul play by way of deceit, maliciousness, jealous etc., following justice, and morality and practising right spiritual practices like devotion to the Supreme BEING, Meditation on the Supreme Being, Worship, Prayer, etc.,
will not get one into Karma which is the cause for re-birth (Punarjanma). Those who do not lead life in accordance with Dharma shall get into the bondage of Karma (action and reaction phenomena) and therefore take birth again and again (Punarjanma) to work out their Karma.
It is necessary to understand the principle of Karma to understand life itself. Some philosophies have the concept of only one birth and no more. If that is so then God/ Supreme Being is a highly discriminating entity and there will be no explanation why a human being is born blind by birth, physically handicapped by birth. Some born as rich, some born as extremely poor, some born in fair color, some born as dark color, some as tribes, some with various talents like singing, dancing, painting etc.. some are born with unknown deadly diseases, some are born healthy, some in life become achievers and some others as great failures in life etc..
This discrimination of God makes him cruel, and against human beings because he has discriminated against various human beings not treating alike, but this is not the truth.
Supreme Being (God) has equanimity towards all Beings and HE is the epitome of Supreme Kindness and Equanimity. Therefore, here comes the principle of Karma (accumulated action and reaction of past lives). Unless we realise the existence of past lives, and good and bad actions in those lives, this disparity mentioned above can never be understood. This principle of Karma can alone explain why each individual is differently born as mentioned earlier. In Sanathan philosophy the entire life and the happenings in life are based on one’s own karma only.
Similar to Karma is relationships in each one’s life which is called as Runa (emotional debt) to each other in past lives.
Those who lead life according to Dharma, incur no new Karma if they are careful, and also wipe out the accumulated Karma of the past lives through right spiritual practises. When left with no Karma, there will be no cause to take rebirth (Punarjanma).
Freeing oneself from all types of Karma is known as Mukthi (liberation from the bondage of action-reaction phenomena). Then, the Individual Consciousness (soul or ego) dissolves into the Universal Consciousness (attaining eternal rest from the cycle of births and deaths).
Moksha is nothing but the process of Individual Consciousness transcending (going beyond) the cosmic sound AAUM/OM through Right Spiritual Practices taking Sanathan Gods names which are nothing but cosmic codes that can transcend the Cosmic Sound AAUM/OM to reach the abode of God for eternity and never return to the cycle of birth and death. This phenomena is Moksha (Salvation).
Therefore, Sanathana Dharma is fundamentally based on the principles of Dharma, Karma, Punarjanma, and Moksha. These are the four fundamental PILLARS of Sanathana Dharma and this is the definition of Sanathana Dharma where the way of life of Hindus is moulded around these pillars, underlying cosmic science and spirituality through their cultural way of life. Therefore, Hindhu cultural way of life is spiritual in nature and not blind beliefs as pseudointellectual idiots propagate.
“Sanathan Spiritual Saadhana (pursuit) is the return journey of the Individual Soul to its origin (Universal Consciousness / God) not for attaining hell or heaven i.e., not to revolve around the cycle of birth and death but to attain Moksha.”
– TATH SATH
What is Sanathana Dharma/ Hinduism?
How to become a Practising Hindu?
The way of life envisaged for the people of Bhaarath (India) by the divine incarnations, and by their enlightened great sages and saints of yore who had fully aligned to the Supreme Being, from time immemorial is known as “SANATHANA DHARMA”.
‘Sanathana’ in Sanskrit means eternal, everlasting, non-changing, and ‘Dharma’ means a comprehensive righteous way of life. Therefore, Sanathana Dharma simply means, “a way of life that leads human beings in the spiritually evolutionary direction (towards higher spiritual orders of life and ultimately towards Moksha i.e., the eternal and everlasting state in the Supreme Being/ God/ Universal Consciousness by dissolving oneself into IT )”.
Dharma never means Religion as professed in the ordinary sense. Religion is a set of Do’s and Don’ts prescribed rightly or wrongly by it’s founder for his followers demanding unquestioning faith and loyalty to his teachings, and with certain punishments for not following them. In this sense, Sanathana Dharma is NOT a religion, for it has neither a founder nor a beginning. It is as natural as Nature is. Truly, there cannot be one mortal man laying foundation for a way of life for an entire community/ humanity.
Further, Sanathana Dharma is not wedded to or limited to any one man’s spiritual thought process. It is the collective spiritual wisdom (amalgam) of several divine incarnations, and, infinite number of enlightened great sages, saints, and philosophers of Bhaarath, from time immemorial. Therefore, it is NOT a religion but a spiritually cultural way of life of Hindus in a very broader sense. It is Eternal and Universal as nature is, and all encompassing, and always catering to the evolutionary instincts of human beings at varied levels.
“Sanathana Dharma” is also known as Hinduism.
It is generally believed that the invaders from the northwest frontier of the subcontinent who invaded Bhaarath in the recent historical time, called the civilization beyond the Sindhu River as Hindu and it became the name of Sanathana Dharma.
Sanathana Dharma envisages four directive principles i.e., DHARMA (a comprehensive righteous way of living), KARMA (The sum of good and bad actions that binds an entity to the creation, or the world again and again), PUNARJANMA (rebirth to workout one’s accumulated karma of past lives) and MOKSHA (disseminating into the Supreme Being/ God forever without any further birth/ rebirth).
One who leads life in accordance with Dharma (righteous way of living) i.e., living in complete harmony with nature, respecting every aspect of nature, following the divine principles like love, compassion, non-violence mentally and physically except for self-protection, or for protecting the dependents, or for establishing the righteousness (Dharma like Mahabhaaratha war), and charity, doing allotted or accepted duties in the right and dedicated way (application, dedication, and discipline), service to the SUPREME BEING by way of serving the fellow-beings, abstaining from cheating or foul play by way of deceit, maliciousness, jealous etc., following justice, and morality and practising right spiritual practices like devotion to the Supreme BEING, Meditation on the Supreme Being, Worship, Prayer, etc., will not get one into Karma which is the cause for re-birth (Punarjanma). Those who do not lead life in accordance with Dharma shall get into the bondage of Karma (action and reaction phenomena) and therefore take birth again and again (Punarjanma) to work out their Karma.
It is necessary to understand the principle of Karma to understand life itself. Some philosophies have the concept of only one birth and no more. If that is so then God/ Supreme Being is a highly discriminating entity and there will be no explanation why a human being is born blind by birth, physically handicapped by birth. Some born as rich, some born as extremely poor, some born in fair color, some born as dark color, some as tribes, some with various talents like singing, dancing, painting etc.. some are born with unknown deadly diseases, some are born healthy, some in life become achievers and some others as great failures in life etc..
This discrimination of God makes him cruel, and against human beings because he has discriminated against various human beings not treating alike, but this is not the truth.
Supreme Being (God) has equanimity towards all Beings and HE is the epitome of Supreme Kindness and Equanimity. Therefore, here comes the principle of Karma (accumulated action and reaction of past lives). Unless we realise the existence of past lives, and good and bad actions in those lives, this disparity mentioned above can never be understood. This principle of Karma can alone explain why each individual is differently born as mentioned earlier. In Sanathan philosophy the entire life and the happenings in life are based on one’s own karma only.
Similar to Karma is relationships in each one’s life which is called as Runa (emotional debt) to each other in past lives.
Those who lead life according to Dharma, incur no new Karma if they are careful, and also wipe out the accumulated Karma of the past lives through right spiritual practises. When left with no Karma, there will be no cause to take rebirth (Punarjanma).
Freeing oneself from all types of Karma is known as Mukthi (liberation from the bondage of action-reaction phenomena). Then, the Individual Consciousness (soul or ego) dissolves into the Universal Consciousness (attaining eternal rest from the cycle of births and deaths).
Moksha is nothing but the process of Individual Consciousness transcending (going beyond) the cosmic sound AAUM/ OM through Right Spiritual Practices taking Sanathan Gods names which are nothing but cosmic codes that can transcend the Cosmic Sound AAUM/ OM to reach the abode of God for eternity and never return to the cycle of birth and death. This phenomena is Moksha (Salvation).
Therefore, Sanathana Dharma is fundamentally based on the principles of Dharma, Karma, Punarjanma, and Moksha. These are the four fundamental PILLARS of Sanathana Dharma and this is the definition of Sanathana Dharma where the way of life of Hindus is moulded around these pillars, underlying cosmic science and spirituality through their cultural way of life. Therefore, Hindhu cultural way of life is spiritual in nature and not blind beliefs as pseudointellectual idiots propagate.
“Sanathan Spiritual Saadhana (pursuit) is the return journey of the Individual Soul to its origin (Universal Consciousness/ God) not for attaining hell or heaven i.e., not to revolve around the cycle of birth and death but to attain Moksha.”
– TATH SATH