Teachings of the Hindu Mystics (eBook)

Fromthe Introduction MaxMller, the pioneering Indologist of the nineteenth century, wrote,'We all come from the East and in going to the East everyone ought to feelthat he is going to his 'old home' full of memories if only he could readthem.' Those words have a specially poignant meaning for me, since I wasborn in India of parents who themselves were born in India, spent the firstnine years of my life there, and have returned as often as possible since,always to try and drink deeper from the still-living springs of its ancientpassion and wisdom. The texts that I am offering in this anthology have beenintimate companions for many years, India, in all its faces and powers, hasbeen at the core of my life and search. India is, and always will be, the'old home' of my heart and of my soul. Oneof the first things I learned as a child about 'Hinduism' is that theword itself is inaccurate. An old Indian scholar friend of my parents explainedto me patiently one morning that 'Hindu' was originally ageographical rather than a religious term, used first in the Persian empire andthen by the Greek soldiers and historians who followed Alexander as he sweptacross the world, for those who lived on the banks of the Indus River, in whatis now the Punjab. 'We Indians do not use this name,' my friend saidgently. 'We call our religion the Sanatana Dharma—,the 'EternalWay.'' He spelled out the magical Sanskrit syllables slowly for me andthen wrote them out in big letters in my red school notebook. Being aninquisitive seven year old, I asked, 'Why do you call it the EternalWay?' He looked a little startled and then almost whispered,'Because, my dear Andrew, it is eternal. The Sanatana Dharma, we believe,began when the universe was first unrolled out of the mind of God. It andcreation began at exactly the same moment.' Those words with their senseof a clear, majestic, changeless order thrilled me, and I repeated them tomyself for years. Asa child, what I knew of this Sanatana Dharma was at once exotic and ordinary,homespun and picturesque. Hinduism for me was visits to temples where plump,smiling priests fed me sweets and introduced me to various gods swathed inbrilliant yellow and purple silk, it was the garish shrines to Shiva and Vishnuby the side of the road, reeking of rancid butter, the festival of Holi withthousands of wild shriekers in the streets flinging fresh paint at each other,comic books with the stories of Krishna luridly fleshed out for children, thesound of temple bells echoing across moonlit fields, the tang of incense fromour cook's tiny altar in the corner of his room. Once, as I was walking aloneby the Jamuna River near our home, I saw an old holy man, a sadhuwrappedin a flame-orange robe, standing silently in prayer, his hands lifted inadoration to the rising sun, on his face I saw a look I had never seen inchurch, a look of still and incandescent devotion and tenderness, he seemed tobe whispering to someone he knew very well and deeply. That afternoon I told mymother that I had seen a saint talking to God. Later,when I came to discuss Hinduism with one of my colleagues at All Souls College,Oxford—,Robin Zaehner, the brilliant and eccentric translator of the Upanishadsand Bhagavad Gita—,I learned that in many ways 'Hinduism' is nothinglike what we normally think of as a religion. The Sanatana Dharma is agallimaufry of the most extravagantly varied faiths, rituals, customs, andbeliefs, Hinduism has no single dogmatic authority and, until very recently inits history, no 'missionary zeal' to convert...