In this episode, we are covering Hinduism. The oldest continuous religion in the world with maybe the largest pantheon of gods. We dig into a handful of their hundreds of Gods and explain their beliefs of karma, reincarnation, moksha, and more.
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Katie Dooley 00:12
Welcome back, everyone. My name is Katie.
Preston Meyer 00:14
I'm Preston
Katie Dooley 00:15
And you're listening to...
Both Hosts 00:17
The Holy Watermelon podcast.
Preston Meyer 00:20
Alright, so we've enjoyed a nice little run through the Abrahamic faiths that some people like to call the Western traditions. And now we're going to deal into a little bit of the- the river folk and the Aryans. We're gonna look at the the Vedic religion, also known as Hinduism.
Katie Dooley 00:42
So do you want to explain the name a little bit better? 'Cause I think you shocked our listeners.
Preston Meyer 00:50
What? Shock? No,
Katie Dooley 00:53
No, never.
Preston Meyer 00:56
All right. So Hinduism is, in my opinion, an incredibly lazy name for a religion. As far as I can tell, it is a name imposed on a culture from outsiders, almost in the same way that Christian was a name used to persecute Christian Jews in the early first century of the Christian era.
Katie Dooley 01:21
And then they took their power back!
Preston Meyer 01:23
Yeah, they adopted the name themselves and made it their own. Hinduism is kind of like that. That European anthropologists are like, those people are Hindus, based on where they lived, which was called by Europeans, India, named for the Indus River, which like the Mississippi River, is a tautology. It's basically a big river river. Tautology meaning a thing that is a name repeated.
Katie Dooley 01:57
Oh, like, chai tea.
Preston Meyer 02:00
Like chai tea, or the Gobi desert or, or the Sahara Desert
Katie Dooley 02:04
Or Jugo juice. It's actually pronounced what you go in Spanish and it's juice juice. Yeah.
Preston Meyer 02:10
You say Jugo juice.
Katie Dooley 02:11
Well, I think most Canadians say Jugo juice because we don't speak Spanish.
Preston Meyer 02:15
I always thought it was Jugo juice for English-speaking. Okay. But yes.
Katie Dooley 02:20
But yeah, that's how you say Spanish or English apparently but it means juice juice.
Preston Meyer 02:25
Yeah. So these people in the area of the Indus River who have this name forced upon them of Indians. That's basically just calling them river folk. Which is kind of nifty that rivers are actually hugely important in that in their religious culture, and especially the Ganges River. So calling them river folk, though, is odd, isn't wildly inappropriate.
Katie Dooley 03:00
Okay.
Preston Meyer 03:02
Of course, India to Indians is called Bharat, not India, kind of like Germany. If you talk to a German, they know their country is not called Germany. It's just other people are like no, you're Germany. That was a Roman thing.
Katie Dooley 03:21
Well, thank you for explaining why you titled this episode the way you titled it.
Preston Meyer 03:28
So what about the Aryans?
Katie Dooley 03:30
Okay, tell me about the Aryans, the white folk.
Preston Meyer 03:33
So, another big problem I have with the whole east/west divide that we talked about a few episodes. Hinduism, if there's any truth to their own story that the Vedic religion was brought to the Indian region by the Aryans, these are lighter skinned folk from north and west of India. So European or at the very least, Mediterranean, Middle East, but the paler folk, not the dark folk native to the Indian subcontinent.
Katie Dooley 04:12
Okay.
Preston Meyer 04:13
So, of course, these-this name Aryan has brought with it some baggage, thanks to the people who brought you the Second World War. But that was the name that we have for that ancient people.
Katie Dooley 04:31
All right. Well, thanks for clearing that up.
Preston Meyer 04:34
So let's take a look at what Hinduism actually is.
Katie Dooley 04:38
Do we want to go over some fast facts?
Preston Meyer 04:41
Yeah, let's do it. What do you got?
Katie Dooley 04:42
Well, it's the largest of the air quotes, Eastern religions. It has over 1 billion practitioners, subscribers, followers, and it's the world's oldest, I would say World's Oldest Active religion,
Preston Meyer 05:02
Oldest continuous, it's changed at farms, but so is every other religion that claims any sort of age as well. So, seems as valid to me as any.
Katie Dooley 05:11
The basis of Hinduism is that there is one supreme unchanging being or God, the Brahman. He's limitless genderless, although I just said he, Brahman is limitless, genderless
Preston Meyer 05:29
I think a lot of people do default to the masculine thing there. It's a habit of our language.
Katie Dooley 05:36
Yeah. I don't like it. And so everything in the world is Brahman, and he just, they just take different forms
Preston Meyer 05:49
It's like the force. It permeates every living thing.
Katie Dooley 05:52
Yeah, actually, that's a really good way to explain it.
Preston Meyer 05:58
I'm a Star Wars nerd.
Katie Dooley 05:59
And we'll break down into more on what and who Brahman appears as. But that is the common thread, that everything is Brahman, and Brahman is everything.
Preston Meyer 06:14
So it's kind of... we talked about it previously being pretty- What's the word? I'm looking for? -polytheistic. But there's definitely facets of that look, henotheistic, but really deep in its core, it is pantheistic, where God is everywhere, and everything is part of God.
Katie Dooley 06:36
Including you and me.
Preston Meyer 06:37
Absolutely.
Katie Dooley 06:38
And this dog on my lap.
Preston Meyer 06:39
So theological models get really tricky, especially in this particular situation.
Katie Dooley 06:45
Do you just want to quickly digress and explain the difference between poly-, pan- and heno-? I know we've touched on it all before, but let's just give everyone, including me, a refresher.
Preston Meyer 06:57
All right. So let's start with the familiar idea of monotheism. There's one God he's responsible for everything. Or she in some cases, lots of people believe in a single Goddess, and that's it. And mono- is the one God, there's no side gods, usually.
Katie Dooley 07:17
Christianity...
Preston Meyer 07:20
Then panthe-, no, that's not where I wanted to go next. Polytheism: is the idea there are many gods. Usually they're placed on an equal footing, but sometimes, there's, actually in most cases, there's a whole bunch of Gods on an equal level with one or two. I don't think ever more than three gods who are slightly above those
Katie Dooley 07:46
Would a good example of this be the Greek pantheon? That's immediately what I think of.
Preston Meyer 07:51
The Greek pantheon is a good example where you got three brothers who are kind of the tops, and then all of the other gods who are their sisters or their children who are associated with them, but definitely lower on that totem pole. Totem pole is a bad example, lower on that hierarchy. And then henotheism is the idea that a nation and a community can have many different gods, and it's okay for you to worship one God that's different than mine. And I'll still accept that your worship is valid, and is going to get you the same place my worship is gonna get me. And then there's kathenotheism, which is the idea that you can move between Gods without any worry, which is actually kind of cool. Or sometimes Gods will move within the hierarchy as well.
Katie Dooley 08:45
And then pan- is what we're about to-- where everything is God and God is everything - cool!
Preston Meyer 08:50
And usually, you'll see expressions of that one name for God, like, like Brahman, but there's also expressions of God, or manifestations of that same God, or avatars even sometimes that's the word that comes up a fair bit in Hinduism. But it's all one God. And so the Vedic religion brought by the Aryans to the Indus region tells about this theological model, and the Dravidian natives. Just well I don't want to say they just accepted it. They were conquered as most people who can- who make massive conversions. What, what are the texts for Hinduism? I know you've looked into this a little bit.
Katie Dooley 09:36
Thank you for that nice, segue. The Hindu tradition has the Vedas. And there are four Vedas, the Rigveda, the Samaveda, the Yajurveda, and the Atharvaveda.
Preston Meyer 09:56
Cool. Are there words for those people who stumbled across those syllables can call them instead.
Katie Dooley 10:02
I mean, yes. The Rigveda is the praises, the Samaveda is the songs, the Yajurveda is worship, and the Atharvaveda, I got it that time, is procedures. The Vedas, just like in the Abrahamic religion are all believed to be divinely inspired and they are written as epics.
Preston Meyer 10:29
Fantastic.
Katie Dooley 10:30
My understanding is that they are very, very long.
Preston Meyer 10:33
Some of them are short, but they definitely build up to be long poems pretty pretty well, have you read any of them?
Katie Dooley 10:40
I know we read parts of the Bhagavad Gita for school, but it's been a while.
Preston Meyer 10:47
Cool. I have a little book on my shelf. It's, it's actually a collection of snippets of scripture from a whole bunch of religions, irritatingly enough, it's got pretty much the whole New Testament. And then itty-bitty selections of other religions, somebody had a favorite.
Katie Dooley 11:04
In my research, I found some like, very B-rated movies of the Vedas, and I kind of want to sit down and watch them with you. And they show all the epics and...
Preston Meyer 11:16
Bollywood is hugely successful. There's a lot of money there. Oh, totally. I think they should redo the Veda stories. I mean, having done no research, I bet you somebody is actually working on it recently.
Katie Dooley 11:29
Oh, I don't know. But recently, but I saw some live-action. It was pretty spectacular.
Preston Meyer 11:33
Excellent. All right. So the, the most well-know of the scriptures in Hinduism is the Bhagavad Gita, as you said before, so easily compared to your use of the other titles.
Katie Dooley 11:37
So one of the most well-known pieces of Hindu writing is the Bhagavad Gita. I was saying it's so well earlier, Bhagavad Gita. And it teaches you how to live your best life. It is part of a larger epic poem, the largest the largest poem ever written, the longest poem supposedly ever written. Large is irrelevant.
Preston Meyer 12:22
All right. There's also the Upanishads. They exist to explain the Vedas similar to the Jewish Talmud, where you've got the sages or the rabbis, you've got the gurus who go and explain it. I don't know if Guru is really the right word. I know that's a word more used with Sikhs, but I feel like that's still totally a Hindu used word.
Katie Dooley 12:46
We're killing it right now. Yeah. Yes. And they, they would expand upon the Vedas and explain them and, and that's become this larger piece of religious texts.
Preston Meyer 13:00
All right. So of course, the Rigveda, as we mentioned before it, it's one of the most important books of knowledge. It's also significantly older than any of the Western religious texts, it predates even the oldest part of the Hebrew Bible by more than 1000 years, which is pretty impressive that we have writings that far back that we know how old they are. What do Hindus actually believe? What, what comes of all these books?
Katie Dooley 13:33
That's a really big question.
Preston Meyer 13:36
No kidding.
Katie Dooley 13:37
So I mean, as I mentioned before, it all comes back to Brahman, who is literally the shared soul of everything, which is kind of badass.
Preston Meyer 13:48
Right? But what if I don't feel like I'm Brahman?
Katie Dooley 13:54
Well, lucky for you. This is where you've talked about this in the past. So you're actually an expert on it, that Hinduism has been happy to absorb other gods and goddesses from other cultures, and just like adapt them a bit and be like, cool. You're part of Brahman too. Thanks for telling us about this side of Brahma we didn't know. Right, which is where they have this massive, like hundreds, I think there's over 200 Hindu gods and goddesses.
Preston Meyer 14:25
I've heard numbers bigger than that. So that's easy to believe. We have I'm going to swing back into that Christianity thing that we were talking about before, that the Jews had Jesus killed, because he said he was God on more than one occasion. And that was really offensive in a strictly monotheistic society. In India, where there's already an accepted idea of multiple expressions and iterations and avatars of Brahman as a perfectly worshipable thing. Worshipable thing. Jesus is saying, I'm the son of God, or I am God isn't a problem to them at all. We'll add you to the list, which is exactly what they did when Thomas travelled to India and said, Hey, I got to tell you the story about Jesus of Nazareth. And they're like, Great, we'll add him to the list
Katie Dooley 15:23
And you know, Thomas, like, "oh, no, I fucked this wasn't how it was supposed to go, oh, no, oh no."
Preston Meyer 15:31
Plenty of people did fully adopt the Christian tradition. He brought them and definitely more, were just like, okay, yeah, he's another avatar of Vishnu or whatever. And then went on with their lives without really changing anything.
Katie Dooley 15:47
Add him to my fantasy football team.
Preston Meyer 15:51
Problem is Jesus got those holes in his hands. He's aerodynamic, but his catching ability isn't great.
Katie Dooley 15:56
Oh, yeah. I'm like, what other things are like fantasy football, but not fantasy football at all? Dungeons and Dragons. But I don't know if he'd be that helpful in Dungeons and Dragons either.
Preston Meyer 16:10
I feel like if you're worried about your fantasy football team, you need a different set of Gods preferably actually, realistically, we've got some great gods in Hinduism. Who could be great at football. Like Ganesha, the elephant man.
Katie Dooley 16:26
Did you know Ganesha is like the most popular of the Hindu gods.
Preston Meyer 16:31
Do you know why? Because his head's got an elephant?
Katie Dooley 16:33
No. Do you know why he has an elephant head?
Preston Meyer 16:37
I do remember hearing the story in school and we covered very, very briefly Hinduism that his head was cut off. Mom all freaked out, dad's like, "Fine, I'll give you a head back," and decided not to give him his original head as a joke, because he's a dick.
Katie Dooley 16:58
Yes, that is how Ganesha is an elephant. But Ganesha is the most popular because he's the remover of obstacles.
Preston Meyer 17:08
You know what, that's a pretty good reason to be popular. And I like that.
Katie Dooley 17:11
I think I totally see where it's like, oh, I got this problem.
Preston Meyer 17:16
Go to Ganesha. He's the one who deals with that.
Katie Dooley 17:20
We're not going to go into all 1000 of them. If you're listening to this, and there's one you want to hear about that we don't cover, send us a message. And we can do we'll group them together and do an episode on some other Hindu gods. But we have notes here on I think five or six most popular, common, widely worshipped in Hinduism because we could be here for decades, we explained.
Preston Meyer 17:51
Ain't nobody got time for that?
Katie Dooley 17:52
I mean, someone probably does.
Preston Meyer 17:55
I mean, yeah, I do. Let's be real.
Katie Dooley 18:02
Numero uno, actu- well, backtrack. Hinduism has its own Trinity. Yeah. Called the Trimurti.
Preston Meyer 18:18
Why does that sound like somebody wanted to rip off somebody else's name, but make it make it not obvious that they were copying their work
Katie Dooley 18:29
Because if you know me at all, Katie in any accent, other than my Canadian accent is really bad. My French was horrible. My German is horrible. And my Sanskrit is horrible. So Trimurti is the Hindu Trinity. It is made up of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.
Preston Meyer 18:52
And Vishnu and Shiva are of course, part of Brahma.
Katie Dooley 18:55
Oh, well, no, there's Brahmin. And then Brahma
Preston Meyer 19:01
Brahmin is the priestly caste.
Katie Dooley 19:04
Is it? Have I been saying it wrong the entire time?
Preston Meyer 19:06
Maybe? I might have to actually. Brahma is the god soul. So have we been wrong? No. Yeah.
Katie Dooley 19:17
To be clear, we have to clear so Brahman, is the universal force soul of everything. Brahma is a God. And then you can be no, I'm explaining it, none of this needs to be cut, and then you can be part of the Brahmin class caste. So there's Brahman, your Brahman, I'm Brahman, this dog is Brahman. There's Brahma, who is an iteration of Brahma- Brahman with Shiva and Vishnu, and then you can be a Brahmin, which is the priestly castes. Got it?
Preston Meyer 19:55
I'm, there.
Katie Dooley 19:56
Are you? Are you there? These people listening to us. Cool Brahma numero uno in Trimurti.
Preston Meyer 20:09
Part of me wants to just switch it to a trinity, but that would be inappropriate.
Katie Dooley 20:13
I mean, I think it's bad enough that it gets called the Hindu Trinity. Frequently. It's like the Old Testament.
Preston Meyer 20:23
The Christians don't have a monopoly on the word trinity, if you got three things that's a trinity.
Katie Dooley 20:28
When you say Hindu Trinity, it's because it's like field hockey versus hockey. You're saying field hockey because people need to know it's different from the real hockey.
Preston Meyer 20:37
Did you know there's underwater hockey?
Katie Dooley 20:38
I'm not surprised.
Preston Meyer 20:41
I didn't know that until I accused my landlord of being a hockey player. And he's like, "Yeah, but no, I play underwater hockey." 'Cause apparently, it hurts just a little bit less than you take the puck to the teeth, which is how I knew he was a hockey player.
Katie Dooley 20:58
So I will, I will say Trimurti. Just like we try to say Hebrew Bible and not Old Testament.
Preston Meyer 21:06
Yeah, I think that's appropriate
Katie Dooley 21:08
And as much I'm probably mispronouncing and I hope it's a better effort than just saying Hindu Trinity. Brahma, number one, Trimurti. He's the creator of the Vedas. He's the one who I guess gave the divine inspiration. He has four heads, one for each Veda, one for each direction, season whatever you want to make that four into and a Veda came from each of his mouth. He is the God of creation and in the Trimurti, one's creation, one's maintenance and one is destruction. So the full circle of life, I guess, so he's the creator in the Trimurti.
Preston Meyer 21:53
All right. Number two is Vishnu. He is the preserver sometimes also called a savior. He has blue skin, pretty common among Hindu gods as well as Egyptian gods. And that's kind of nifty, and usually describe with four arms. Another great add for your fantasy football team. He's a catcher and a thrower. One would hope.
Katie Dooley 22:20
He can tackle real well. And he would be the preserver.
Preston Meyer 22:25
Now I'm just imagining Machamp.
Katie Dooley 22:29
I kind of want to make this fantasy football team.
Preston Meyer 22:33
Having lots of arms, I'm sure has a lot of symbolic meaning. But since I didn't grow up, interpreting those symbols in my daily life, all I can imagine is the idea of preserving power, that He is mighty to save as they often say about Jesus.
Katie Dooley 22:52
Shiva is the third in the Trimurti. Shiva is the destroyer. That completes this cycle. He is portrayed with a serpent around his neck and a third eye that if it opens and it's looking at you, you will be destroyed.
Preston Meyer 23:09
Man, see a third eye sounds to me like just the capacity to see more. And I mean, maybe that's part of the deal. But now I'm thinking Cyclops from the X-Men who just destroy stuff is laser eyes.
Katie Dooley 23:22
It's Shiva.
Preston Meyer 23:25
I'm curious how popular the X-Men are in India. If you're in India, listening to our podcast, and I hope that one day our podcast is that popular? I would love to hear from you.
Katie Dooley 23:3
I think you should tackle Krishna, because I think he's quite interesting.
Preston Meyer 23:44
He is kind of interesting. So one of the big celebrations attached to him is of course, his birth, he did live a mortal life. He's one of the avatars of Vishnu. And so a lot of people like to compare him to Jesus being Son of God come down mortal. And so he's very compassionate figure, much like Jesus is usually represented to be unless, of course, your favorite story of Jesus is smashing tables in the temple, not a great parallel.
Katie Dooley 24:17
I'm sure there's a temple smashing God in Hinduism. Oh, I feel very confident that Shiva is someone else.
Preston Meyer 24:24
So he is usually depicted, or at least very often depicted as a child figure, like baby Jesus, often at Christmas time. People like to forget that Jesus was an adult in December for some reason. He's also connected with the, the sanctity of cows, that as a child, he drank from a cow directly. And that's part of why cows are sacred in Hinduism is that connection to that God which I thought was kind of nifty. There's a lot more about meat that we'll get into later as well. What's that?
Katie Dooley 25:07
Herdsmen. If you talk people can hear joyous laughter I didn't know what to put for like heaven for Krishna, so I wrote space home.
Preston Meyer 25:45
Krishna is also depicted as a herdsman, a divine herdsman, even much like the Good Shepherd of Christianity. Good old Jesus figure coming back.
Katie Dooley 25:56
The herdsman ties back into the- the sanctity of cows in Hinduism.
Preston Meyer 25:59
Absolutely. So, a lot of what we see in Jesus is very familiar in the figure of Krishna, and even his death has parallels to Jesus. The place of his death is a pilgrimage site. And as we see often in Jerusalem, Krishna died by an accident rather than a deliberate mob that had Him crucified. But that place is still a sacred space. And there is forgiveness to his killer much as we see familiar in Jesus. And of course, like Jesus, He ascended back into the heavens.
Katie Dooley 26:42
Space home! I just think like the Jetsons, and a rocket ship when I say space home.
Preston Meyer 26:49
Of course.
Katie Dooley 26:52
Those are, those are...
Preston Meyer 26:54
Those are the five gods that we wanted to get into today, before we get into the the more useful knowledge for those who aren't going to adopt the faith on how to recognize the beliefs and practices of your neighbours.
Katie Dooley 27:10
So I mentioned about 1000 times now, Brahmin Brahma Brahmans You wanna break down the Brahma--ns for me, I mean, the caste system.
Preston Meyer 27:26
I can do that for sure. So,
Katie Dooley 27:30
There's a caste system in Hinduism. And originally, you were absolutely able to move between castes.
Preston Meyer 27:42
That didn't last very long.
Katie Dooley 27:43
No, it didn't. And it became this very hard line.
Preston Meyer 27:46
You're born into it.
Katie Dooley 27:49
You marry into your cast. It is starting to loosen up again.
Preston Meyer 27:53
Now that there's enough people living in the digital age, those barriers are coming down.
Katie Dooley 27:58
But absolutely, it wasn't- I had a co-worker and he's Hindu and he had- he married up "up" air quotes. I don't
Preston Meyer 28:09
Oh, there's there's definitely a linear value on these castes.
Katie Dooley 28:14
So he married up and I think it was a little scandalous, but not super scandalous. And I, in my research, I saw that on dating sites, you could say, you know, caste doesn't matter if you're in Indian dating. Yeah, so in the past, were like way past didn't matter. You can move between based off of what you were good at. And then it became this hard line, you were born into your caste, and you didn't move from your caste.
Preston Meyer 28:40
So there are four primary castes. Of course, each group is subdivided into more sub-castes, that if you look it up on Wikipedia, you'll find 200 different caste groups. Some reports will give you numbers as high as 2000 different castes. Many. It's you got to organize your people, I guess. This is the way to do it. I mean,
Katie Dooley 29:04
India has a lot of people I was gonna be like, there's not even 2,000 people in India.
Preston Meyer 29:12
One of the more densely populated so the top caste, I always wanted to say cased because that's where it's spelt. In fact, a little piece of me is still convinced it should be pronounced cay-st in English. It comes from the Portuguese word Casta. So caste is kind of the way we've got the word
Katie Dooley 29:30
Like Canadian niche versus American niche.
Preston Meyer 29:34
If I hear somebody say niche, I want to hit them. Because even though I accept that mispronunciation of words come from the practice of reading if you learn to read by reading, that's cool. But also you need to put yourself in situations where you're gonna learn words by hearing people say them.
Katie Dooley 29:52
So for our 30% of American listeners...
Preston Meyer 29:59
I'm not super violent, but the desire does come to mind from time to time
Katie Dooley 30:06
I thought you're gonna say I'm not super sorry. Because I apologized. You're like, No, I'm not sorry. I meant what I said.
Preston Meyer 30:15
Like when I hear somebody say schedule. I understand why you've done it. But in the morning, do you send your kids off to shul?
Katie Dooley 30:28
Worse I ever heard. And I don't know it came from North America, I just don't know where worsh instead of wash.
Preston Meyer 30:36
So, I know in Boston, there's a lot of extra Rs thrown unto words. And I've heard them also thrown into the middle of words, in plenty of cases, too. I don't love it. But as long as I can understand you were gonna be okay.
Katie Dooley 30:53
If you say worsh, could you drop me a DM, please, I just need to know where you're from. Thank you. Back to the caste system. The top is
Preston Meyer 31:02
The top is the Brahmins. That's the priestly class. So that's how they ended up on top. If we get to say we're the voice of God, and we get to pick where we are on the totem pole, we're going to be the best of the best,
Katie Dooley 31:17
But isn't everyone, God?
Preston Meyer 31:20
But that's... in practice and day-to-day life, not really important.
Katie Dooley 31:27
I know...
Preston Meyer 31:29
So that's your priestly class on top because you got to preserve your power. That's how that works. Then next on that list, who else has power, but can't tell the people who talk to God what to do? Your governors, your rulers, your warriors.
Katie Dooley 31:47
Are you going to try this word, Preston?
Preston Meyer 31:48
The word is Kshatriya.
Katie Dooley 31:52
Well done.
Preston Meyer 31:53
Some people might put a little more emphasis on that, K, I find that difficult to pronounce. And I just want credit for trying,
Katie Dooley 32:00
I thought you did a good job.
Preston Meyer 32:02
Thanks.
Katie Dooley 32:02
A+
Preston Meyer 32:03
It's like Cthulhu. There's... you got options. And because the dude who invented the word is dead, and gave more than one valid pronunciation before he died, we're going to do what we want. They're all hard to say when you put the wrong sounds together.
Katie Dooley 32:26
When you put that many continents together.
Preston Meyer 32:29
And so those are your rulers, your warriors, the people who have a lot of social burden on them to take care of the people around them. They get a little credit, they get to be higher up than your regular middle-class folks. But they're not the Brahmins who are supposed to be in a position where they can access the divine message. The third, caste is your common artisans, your working class. And the fancy word in Hindu or Sanskrit is Vaishyas, is the way I read that. It could be Vaishyas... It would help if I had more people in my social circle, during a pandemic, who could help me out with the pronunciation of these words.
Katie Dooley 33:28
We'll get an email.
Preston Meyer 33:29
And then you have the sudras at the very bottom of this hierarchy and they are basically untouchable, the like you cannot share food or water with them. You cannot touch them. It's not okay.
Katie Dooley 33:45
These are like... these would be like grave digger like people who would handle dead bodies or garbage or, you know...
Preston Meyer 33:53
People who do the grossest thing is just to live because they don't get to be everybody else.
Katie Dooley 33:58
So what I was saying before is like in the old days, before these became hard lines, if you were if you were born into a family and your parents were sudras but you showed aptitude at arms, you could move up to become a warrior.
Preston Meyer 34:16
That's a big class jump going up past the Vaishyas
Katie Dooley 34:21
But before it was just based off your skill, a webcast you were a part of so if you could wield a sword didn't matter. I'm sure people came down if you weren't very smart and couldn't do the priestly work, but you think you're absolutely right of a basket. They go "Okay, sorry, bud." That's your thing now and then it became this thing where you were born to a whatever family and that's what you stayed, so.
Preston Meyer 34:47
Usually, you'd stick to your family business. But a lot of the time that didn't work out.
Katie Dooley 34:52
That's probably how the firm the firm or lines began. You do what your papa didn't then...
Preston Meyer 35:01
Which is fairly observable even in what white people like to call the better-developed part of the world. White people are annoying. I say that as a white person. I'm terrible. But I try not to be. And I think I should get some credit for that.
Katie Dooley 35:19
I mean, we work hard. So that's, that's the caste system. I don't-- it doesn't does it play a huge role in day-to-day practices?
Preston Meyer 35:31
I don't think it comes up a lot because most of your interactions are going to be within your caste.
Katie Dooley 35:36
Yeah. And I didn't see any differences in in what we're about to talk about.
Preston Meyer 35:41
They definitely don't play a big difference in what you believe. They're fairly uni- well, there's a lot of diversity within Hinduism from house to house. But for the most part, the belief is pretty much the same all around.
Katie Dooley 35:56
So we we bring up the caste system because it came from Hinduism and it's like Preston says it's a way to structure people, whether it's good or bad. It's arguable
Preston Meyer 36:08
Very often for bad but
Katie Dooley 36:11
In recent years for sure. So the big, the Hallas we have all these gods. and the caste system.
Preston Meyer 36:21
We got way too many people. Not not I'm not saying way too many Hindus. I mean, just way too many people on this planet. People suck. But we all belong to the Brahmin that overall, the all-spirit.
Katie Dooley 36:38
So how does this break down into the nitty gritty, we got Brahman, we got gods, they have a caste system. But what do they... we they believe in Brahman. That's just like saying Christians believe in God. But what do they believe about Brahman and the universe?
Preston Meyer 36:54
Well, something that's hugely important is the Atman, which is your human soul. That's like, I want to call it like a shard that's been separated from the whole the
Katie Dooley 37:05
Like the Dark Crystal!
Preston Meyer 37:06
Like the Dark Crystal, kind of maybe. Does the Dark Crystal shatter and then come back together in the end?
Katie Dooley 37:13
Only one piece falls off.
Preston Meyer 37:15
Does it go back into the?
Katie Dooley 37:17
It does... spoiler alert it's from the 80s.
Preston Meyer 37:20
Right. I don't think it counts as a spoiler for a movie that's more than 30 years old. People who are concerned about it, have gone and watched it.
Katie Dooley 37:29
Yes, it becomes whole.
Preston Meyer 37:31
Okay. So I think it's a fair comparison, that the Atman is a part of that immortal, all-spirit that has become a singular, singularly self-identified. It's its own thing. It's separate but still connected. But it is distinct. The goal, of course, is to have the atman develop through a cycle of many lives. The cycle called Samsara, where you you live and die, you live and die, you live and die. And ideally, you'd be moving up from a lower creation to a higher creation, that if you were in the caste of the untouchables, your whole life, hopefully the next life you'd be in a higher... you'd be born into a higher caste.
Katie Dooley 38:20
This also includes not just humans
Preston Meyer 38:24
Absolutely
Katie Dooley 38:25
So the soul is immortal. It doesn't go anywhere.
Preston Meyer 38:30
But we're not aiming to become to come back as dogs.
Katie Dooley 38:33
No that would be lower.
Preston Meyer 38:34
Yes, we definitely want to move upwards. That is the goal.
Katie Dooley 38:39
The process of atman moving from body to body is called transmigration, which I think it's pretty cool that there's a name for it.
Preston Meyer 38:46
Right? And so eventually, the goal is that you would achieve moksha, which is a release from samsara, that you would just stop going through that cycle and be reunited with the Brahman and just live in peace and not have to worry about anything, just be part of the universe. That's sounds kind of nice.
Katie Dooley 39:14
I mean, yeah...
Preston Meyer 39:16
It's better than some stories where you have to spend eternity singing, or farming.
Katie Dooley 39:22
Singing would be bad that I mean,
Preston Meyer 39:24
We've talked about your singing ability before.
Katie Dooley 39:28
I mean, I enjoy singing but those around me that would be my heaven and someone else's hell. I want to talk about karma. All right. Because we bastardize the shit out of the term karma here in the West.
Preston Meyer 39:47
Yeah, we do.
Katie Dooley 39:48
Oh, karma, gonna get you, Preston
Preston Meyer 39:52
Oh, no, what a scary thought.
Katie Dooley 39:53
Because you cut me off or instant karma you know, you see?
Preston Meyer 39:58
Oh I follow r/instinctkarma, there's some great stuff there.
Katie Dooley 40:02
But that's not even a little bit true because karma is not instant.
Preston Meyer 40:06
Right? It's a thing that builds up and comes around.
Katie Dooley 40:10
Karma means action, like so we bastardize it here. It is- it is the consequences of your actions, but it's on this massive scale that yeah, so whatever you- you're mean to someone when you blow a tire, that's not karma. That's just probably coincidence or bad luck. Karma is what you did in one lifetime affecting your current lifetime, or what you're doing current lifetime, affecting a later lifetime. It spans lifetimes, and even like, multiple, like, you can go multiple past lifetimes, something you did four or five lifetimes ago can be affecting you now. And you can be punished for something you did in a past life, but not like not for cutting someone off in traffic today.
Preston Meyer 41:02
Cutting somebody off in traffic is such a minor transgression, like, yeah, it's rude. But it's to say that's a thing that's gonna affect you karmically two lifetimes from now seems extremely improbable.
Katie Dooley 41:17
I mean, every time I've cut someone off, it's been absolutely an accident. I know I'm doing today. I was like, settled down Rambo because he was so eager to get ahead of me. And I feel like there's I will be treated differently than he will be in a future lifetime. Because if he drives like that all the time...
Preston Meyer 41:41
If that behaviour is a defining part of his character, there's other reasons why that's going to affect him. karmically,
Katie Dooley 41:48
Yes, whereas me in accidental cutting off in traffic, I'll be fine, karmically?
Preston Meyer 41:53
I think so. So, karma is usually meant to be directed by an understanding of dharma, which is the principle of duty, karma and dharma. They sound irritatingly alike, like Dharma and Greg, that's exactly where that name comes from.
Katie Dooley 42:11
Really?! I was being facetious
Preston Meyer 42:12
So back in the 60s, when that huge counterculture movement happened in North America, where everybody was just tired of their overbearing Christian parents and their pastors, and even the government. Counter, there's a counterculture coming at us real hard. In the very near future, it's gonna be very obvious to everybody. There's, there was a huge growth in the idea of alternate religious philosophies. From all these people who grew up in their white Christian churches. They're like, No, I want wisdom from abroad. And India was the number one destination where people would go for that sort of guidance. So we also saw a huge surge in witchcraft in North America at the same time, Buddhism...
Katie Dooley 43:04
Satanic panic!
Preston Meyer 43:05
The Satanic Panic was about the same time as well. Yeah, it's and...
Katie Dooley 43:09
I got way too excited to say Satanic Panic
Preston Meyer 43:14
So the name Dharma in Dharma and Greg is actually a feature of that obsession that came up 50-some years ago when the baby boomers were growing up and having kids, they did that...
Katie Dooley 43:31
I mean, I guess Dharma from Dharma and Greg probably would be in our 50s and 60s now. Pushing it... that shows easily 15 years old. And if she was 30, in the show, she'd be pushing 50. So yeah, that makes sense. That checks out.
Preston Meyer 43:50
Yeah. Yay, baby boomers. They made our philosophical and religious landscape in North America more interesting. Because it's not just migrants. We've got loads of people coming in from all over the world in North America. But the adoption of their religious traditions by white people has, I mean, it's undermined them a little bit, which is an annoying reality. But it's also helped people to be more familiar with them, which is not a bad thing.
Katie Dooley 44:24
I want to digress so hard right now, but...
Preston Meyer 44:26
What do you got?
Katie Dooley 44:27
Well, this book is telling you about that I finished the When God Talks Back, and that's sort of the history of evangelicalism starts with... people becoming more spiritual, looking to Eastern traditions, and then like coming back to the church, but the church adopting Eastern things where you now have this personal relationship with God, like the Atman, and it morphs into evangelical Christianity and then these people grow up and grow out of it. And this is where you get like the highly conservative people who talk to God. It's like this weird.... metamorphosis and I thought it was really fascinating
Preston Meyer 45:09
Religion at all times and in all places is highly syncretic, you'll always have traditions absorbing traits of other traditions. And the evangelical movement is actually a great example of that.
Katie Dooley 45:22
We didn't actually explain what Dharma was because we went on that random ass tangent. So tell me, Preston, when I saw rudely interrupted with the Dharma and Greg comment.
Preston Meyer 45:33
So Dharma is the principle of duty. When God says, you need to do these things, whichever iteration of the Trimurti it is that's issuing that message, that commandment of how to live or what your duty is, is dharma. And so as long as you are keeping a balance between...
Katie Dooley 46:01
So they talk a lot about being true to your dharma, and living in your dharma, and it's such a weird term, and you did a good job defining it. But we don't really have an equivalent definition. And it's not quite be true to yourself, because you might not actually enjoy your dharma, it's sort of accepting your station in life, I guess, is the best way to put it?
Preston Meyer 46:23
Oh for sure.
Katie Dooley 46:24
And being happy in that. But there is some self discovery in there, too. It's a really interesting term, because it's, you know, we get some woo-ery here, it's like, be true to yourself and follow your dreams and listen to your inner voice. - It's not quite that far.
Preston Meyer 46:41
You have a Dharma that's imposed on us just by being part of a community. But you are also responsible to seek out some sort of communication with the divine, to receive a Dharma that is specific to you. And there is a trick in the balance there that you can't be doing something and calling it your dharma when it hurts your community because it's super obvious that you're lying.
Katie Dooley 47:11
Yeah and again, like, you might not necessarily like your dharma, but there is like a contentedness, that's expected.
Preston Meyer 47:20
Absolutely.
Katie Dooley 47:21
And that kind of comes back to karma and going through the Samsara cycle. If you're, if you were rebelling against your dharma, you might not come back at a higher level, you may come back at a lower level, because you're not- your way of action is not appropriate. So Dharma is an interesting word. I hope we explained it well but...
Preston Meyer 47:42
I think we've covered it in a truthful enough fashion, that it's still accessible to our audience. So hopefully, that helps you feel better about that. All right, so Hindu worship isn't overtly wildly different from what we're familiar with here in the West. There's a lot of prayer and reading the books. And that's what you'd expect from the Christian next door.
Katie Dooley 48:11
They yeah, they chant. They have shrines is a big thing that is, is different, and...
Preston Meyer 48:20
Is it that different? Your average Christian household sets up a nativity at Christmas, and that is a shrine.
Katie Dooley 48:27
Absolutely. It's a temporary shrine. And I guess that would be the closest equivalent. I mean, Hinduism focuses more on home worship, than, like we talked about in the last few weeks, you know, going every Friday, or going Saturday or going every Sunday
Preston Meyer 48:43
You've got your temples that are open all the time, and you've got home worship,
Katie Dooley 48:48
And home worship is probably, I mean, the Christians I know, do a lot of home worship too, but..
Preston Meyer 48:55
Especially this year.
Katie Dooley 48:56
It feels like home worship is bigger emphasis in Hinduism, whereas public worship is more of an emphasis in the Abrahamic traditions we've talked about. Another part of the Hindu tradition is, and this is why I mentioned shrines is leaving offerings and sacrifice is actually, quite a big part of the Hindu tradition and, you know, leaving offerings at shrines.
Preston Meyer 49:30
For sure. burning incense is pretty standard. You don't have a whole lot of slaughtering goats. sacrifices
Katie Dooley 49:40
I guess in line with the sacrifice thing. The Hindu creation myth is actually a cosmic sacrifice of the first man. How badass is that?
Preston Meyer 49:51
That sounds pretty intense. In the Abrahamic faiths at Adam had a small sacrifice, kind of, barely, where his rib was taken from forcibly in his sleep. So, calling it a sacrifice. I mean, that's as close as we get in the familiar tradition to us. That isn't at all parallel. So in Hinduism, the universe was created by sacrificing the first human. So are you saying that the first human got sacrificed? And then Brahman is like, well, I did that. Now, the universe is here, now I have to populate it. I'll try again with the humans.
Katie Dooley 50:33
Yeah, literally, they sacrifice this guy and everything came from him.
Preston Meyer 50:38
And so from that split, that that cutting of Purusha, men and woman came to be from this androgynous figure, rather than trying again, to create humanity after killing the only one.
Katie Dooley 50:56
And it even says in the Rigveda, that from his body, the universe was created. So I don't know where they got this first man from, but
Preston Meyer 51:05
He was part of the Brahman.
Katie Dooley 51:08
Yes, part of the Brahman person, it was androgynous. They were androgynous and the universe and man and woman came from the sacrifice.
Preston Meyer 51:18
Alright, so like we've talked about in a few of the previous religions, we've discussed, there are dietary restrictions in Hinduism. Have you ever noticed that most Hindus are vegetarian?
Katie Dooley 51:31
Yes, I actually... and maybe this is because I don't know as many Hindus as other religious groups, but I feel like they are the most true to their dietary restrictions, I don't know any Hindus that waiver from them. Whereas I do know, Jewish and Muslims that do. But that again, that could just be because of the proportions of people I know. But you're right. They are all vegetarian
Preston Meyer 52:01
So that's actually behavior that, like others is encouraged in the Vedas. Though it's not outright forbidden to eat meat, by all standards, it is encouraged to be a vegetarian, to respect life, that the right way to live is to hurt as few things as possible, which means not killing animals to eat them.
Katie Dooley 52:23
I wouldn't kick you in the shin, right now. YAH! I'll show you not hurt.
Preston Meyer 52:31
I'll get over it. years of therapy will help me. However, within that suggestion of maybe don't eat a whole lot of meat, there is that strict prohibition from most leaders of the Hindu faith that you should never eat, or even hurt by any means a cow. So when you see a cow walking through the streets, in a city in India, you move around it. That's the deal. You don't shoo it away, you don't kick it to wake it up. You just let it be and hope that nobody else is going to hit it either.
Katie Dooley 53:15
Live and let live because the cow is associated with multiple Hindu gods and then my note says "LOL they're all just Brahman" and it actually it says is specifically just like in Islam, in the Quran and in the Hebrew Bible forJudaism. It says in the Rigveda, and another text we didn't touch on is called the Manusmriti where it actually says do not eat cows. I don't think it says like that, but it tells you not to eat cows.
Preston Meyer 53:48
Basically just don't do it.
Katie Dooley 53:50
Yeah summarizing so in their religious texts, it says stay away from cows do not put that meat no mouth
Preston Meyer 53:56
Yep. Yeah, because the cow is considered holy. It's hugely important. One of the most prominent gods which it's associated is Krishna, as I mentioned before, so the the word that you would describe that you would use to describe the Hindu dietary restrictions is lacto-vegetarian it's okay to have milk. The gods did it, we can do it that's fine. Just don't hurt them.
Katie Dooley 54:27
Don't aggressively yank on their nipples.
Preston Meyer 54:30
Yeah, I think that people have definitely been beaten about a little bit for hurting a cow. Because cows are slightly more sacred than the average person
Katie Dooley 54:42
Because if you're... you know, Canadians don't say Ts. We don't pronounce our T's Torono for example.
Preston Meyer 54:50
Some Ts are more important than others. Yeah.
Katie Dooley 54:5
I don't know if you're saying hurting or herding. Like
Preston Meyer 54:56
Hurtin'
Katie Dooley 54:57
Are you herding the cow or hurting the cow?
Preston Meyer 55:00
Hurtin' I think when you put enough emphasis on the first syllable, you should expect a T. Whereas if you if you were a little softer on that first syllable you'd expect to D herdin' or hurtin'. One of those two things is okay to do with cows, the other is not. Actually, even herding cows is a tricky business. And I think
Katie Dooley 55:29
I think so, here not so much but carry on.
Preston Meyer 55:32
All right. So, some Hindus will eat lamb or sheep or fish or bird. And I don't think that's the standard, but it's also like, you're not going to be thrown out of your community for doing so in most cases. And there are some scholars and Hindu authorities who say that there are some parts of Scripture that say that eating meat including beef, specifically in some special cases, is encourageable and a good thing to do as an act of worship.
Katie Dooley 56:17
Are they Albertan Hindus?
Preston Meyer 56:19
It sounds that way, doesn't it? I'm quite confident that there's not very many of them. In my research, I've heard of two Hindu authorities out of the many popular - two of them have said this sort of thing. And they're... I don't think they're really that popular themselves either, but it's an idea that's out there. But for the most part lacto-vegetarian it's okay to have cheese but you're gonna have fun finding different ways to eat salads and mashed potatoes I guess. I don't know when I think of a vegetarian diet I'm just like my meal minus meat is sad.
Katie Dooley 57:08
Everything else we have it's just honestly some interesting points but nothing really ties together
Preston Meyer 57:16
Yeah, there's no handy segue between every single point in well any religion let's be real.
Katie Dooley 57:23
One... one thing, location, I wanted to mention was actually the Ganges River in India. It is one it is the one of the one of the holiest places in Hinduism. It is believed to be the manifestation of the goddess Ganja
Preston Meyer 57:45
Ganja!
Katie Dooley 57:46
Stop making weed jokes
Preston Meyer 57:49
No, not not ganja. Gunja - gun-ja or Ganges. Those are your two options.
Katie Dooley 58:02
Rituals performed at the Ganges River are believed to be purifying or the equivalent of washing away your sin. And there are dozens of festivals held on the banks every year. Many people I mean, some people bathe themselves there, many people spread the ashes of their loved ones in there. It is the most polluted body of water in the world because of this. It's supposed to be quite unpleasan
Preston Meyer 58:31
Purifying for the spirit, but you will need to shower afterwards.
Katie Dooley 58:37
Yeah, so there's the Ganges. Super important. And actually, I think quite problematic from an infrastructure point of view for India.
Preston Meyer 58:48
Absolutely. All rivers are respected as sacred. Moving water is kind of a big deal. But the Ganges is special in itself. And so calling them river folk, naming them after Indus which of course is also the name for Big River. It's kind of interesting to me. As I mentioned at the beginning.
Katie Dooley 59:12
It all comes full circle, just like with the Trimurti
Preston Meyer 59:16
The Trimurti is a triangle, not a circle.
Katie Dooley 59:19
I guess so but ut it's a cycle. It's just a three-point cycle.
Preston Meyer 59:23
Yeah, fair enough. Let's go with that. I like it. All right. So some... a few things that you're probably going to see in your daily life walking among white folks who have adopted portions of somebody else's religion and their traditions is yoga. What's yoga?
Katie Dooley 59:41
Namaste. It is a philosophy.
Preston Meyer 59:48
You mean it's not just stretching out my legs?
Katie Dooley 59:51
No. And did you actually know women were forbidden from doing yoga? For a very long time.
Preston Meyer 59:55
Definitely not thought about that.
Katie Dooley 59:57
Yeah. And it was actually done by you know high-up Hindu priests, I think even Shamans in Hinduism, and women were actually banned from it. And now if you look at who does Yoga it is predominantly women and predominantly white women. So my how the tables have turned.
Preston Meyer 1:00:15
Now I just remembered a movie. It's got the Rock in it. I'm pretty sure it was called Faster. And there's the bad guy, beat yoga I guess? There's things he says in the movie where he's just like, Yeah, I did all the yoga. I'm so good at it that I mastered every single move, a beat yoga, which is utter nonsense.
Katie Dooley 1:00:35
And we've also Westernized yoga. When you said beat yoga, I was like, Is this a new type of yoga like beer yoga or cat yoga or goat yoga or laughing yoga or metal yoga? So we really wrecked it we did horrible things to yoga over here in the West. But yes, it comes from Hinduism.
Preston Meyer 1:00:54
Yeah. So Yoga is the method. That's what the word means is method it's the method of gaining mental, spiritual and physical insight. So meditating, being at rest is part of yoga, stretching out your body is part of yoga, reading is part of yoga. Anything that helps you develop and bring yourself closer to the Divine, I guess, whatever your method is, that is yoga. Which is a little different from the way we use it. Kind of like karma. Man, we just abuse everything we take.
Katie Dooley 1:01:38
Yeah, we are the plague.
Preston Meyer 1:01:42
White people? I think you're right. I mean, we spread the plague
Katie Dooley 1:01:50
Take over, take these next two point press, and they were they were yours.
Preston Meyer 1:01:54
I mean, you wrote them down and I studied.
Katie Dooley 1:01:56
I just wrote the words.
Preston Meyer 1:01:59
So Tantra is another big deal idea in Hinduism. It's the the weave, that is life, that is spirituality and existence. Everything is woven together, being part of a community is that weaving, but it's primarily thought of as an esoteric thing, the way you connect with people. And so if you think about how you relate with people, that's part of the weave. More famously, you've got Sting and his ridiculously public...
Katie Dooley 1:02:40
Tantric sex. Is it an addiction, tantric sex practice?
Preston Meyer 1:02:45
Yeah, that's the thing. Yeah, so where you're gonna see the word tantric, the most is in relation to sex. Yeah, big scary. It's dealing with how you connect and weave with your partner... Exactly, what you don't see is a finger going through other fingers.
Katie Dooley 1:03:16
Because I'm 12.
Preston Meyer 1:03:21
And then there's Hindu medicine, which I think is actually really nifty having done some research on that, that it's broken up into a specific fields that more or less are similar to the layers that we would have in medical practices here. And they have fancy names that are far too long for me to stumble my way through them in an effective and respectful manner. I'm just going to describe these fields and you can find somewhere where they're written out yourself. So we're looking at what is called Ayurvedic medicine. So the first of course, is general medicine just being a healthy body. Next is pediatrics and midwifery.
Katie Dooley 1:04:11
Midwifery.
Preston Meyer 1:04:12
Yeah. And then we've got surgery, the extraction of foreign objects. We've got treatment of ailments affecting ears, eyes, nose, mouth, the holes in your head. Thanks for that. We've got pacification of possessing spirits, also known as exorcisms.
Katie Dooley 1:04:37
The power of Christ compels you!
Preston Meyer 1:04:38
That's an important part of medicine. I don't know if that I do has morphed into part of dealing with diseases now. A lot of people have thought that way. In other traditions, Christianity doesn't deal mainstream. Christianity doesn't deal a whole lot with exorcisms anymore. But instead, it's easy to look at bacteria being a living thing inside your body could look a lot like a possession of another spirit in your body. So I'm willing to make that leap for those people. There's also toxicology, the name for this in Hindu is way, way too long for me. There's a reason I don't want to try and say these.
Katie Dooley 1:05:34
They are very long.
Preston Meyer 1:05:35
There's also a whole field dedicated to rejuvenation, increasing your lifespan, intellect and strength, which I think is pretty cool. There's people that that's their thing. And then, of course, you've got aphrodisiacs and fertility associated with that is the idea of sexual spiritual development. In Hinduism, there's loads of different ways that you can worship, as long as you are doing something that helps bring you closer to God. And human relationships are definitely a part of that. Sex is a huge part of, of interpersonal relationships. So for a lot of Hindu people, many of whom probably just use this argument to validate sexual access, because loads of people of any tradition will find a way to validate sexual access. There's a basis for that argument in Hinduism. And those are your eight branches of medicine, which I think is pretty cool. And you'll have people specialize in each of those.
Katie Dooley 1:06:42
It's pretty, pretty rad Preston. I think. So I think we've covered a lot. We talked for a long time.
Preston Meyer 1:06:49
We have talked for a little while.
Katie Dooley 1:06:51
I don't have much to summarize, it's a really big religion with a lot of moving parts.
Preston Meyer 1:07:00
And a lot of diversity. Like you can talk to two people who are way into their faith in Hinduism in the Hindu tradition, and they can be very different. And if you say, hey, what about this other guy who does things completely different? They're not likely to have any problem with that, which is a thing that you don't see a whole lot of in Christianity, where there's a lot of infighting between sect- between traditions.
Katie Dooley 1:07:31
It's been a long time since I've looked into Hinduism for sure. And it was hard to re-wrap my head around it during all the research for this episode. But I have a newfound- newfound- refound? appreciation for it's a pretty well-rounded and moderate. I mean, every religion has extremes, but it's a pretty well-rounded and moderate and accepting religion. Yeah, it was nice to refresh my brain on it. And I hope that you learned something, too.
Preston Meyer 1:08:01
Yeah, it's it's pretty interesting. And seeing how we've syncretized parts of it into a lot of popular Christian traditions is interesting as well. There was a time when the vast majority of Christians believed in a in God is a person who is present at one place, but can be felt around the world. And thanks to basically, the baby boomers of the 60s and early 70s, adopting these ideas from somewhere else in the world, it's a lot more common to find Christians who believe in a God who is everywhere permeated through everything. And there are parts of the Bible that encourage that interpretation without outright saying it. So that's kind of nifty that Hinduism has actually had a lot of influence in the world.
Katie Dooley 1:08:54
I think more than people realize. I mean, it's a large religion, there's no way that it wouldn't have that kind of impact. But I think we've had yeah, I think people just aren't aware in the West, how much we have borrowed and adapted and used for ourselves.
Preston Meyer 1:09:11
Yeah. It's weird to think that it came to India by pale folk.
Katie Dooley 1:09:17
It's the whole cycle. It's all come around again. I'm making motions with my hands.
Preston Meyer 1:09:26
What a journey we've taken. All right. Thank you for joining us on that journey. Remember, share us with your friends and family. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram. And if you want to join the conversation, email us at holywatermelonpod@gmail.com.
