Hallo, This is Dr. Bin Song at Washington College for the course of “Comparative Religion: Eastern.”

As a Ru scholar, when I pursue inter-religious studies, I tend to favor worldviews which focus on humans’ individual and social life here and now, no matter how sublime or even mystical that worldview’s metaphysical framework could look like. Unfortunately, it is not the case that all religions help to concentrate people’s attention here and now; quite often, the contrast between this world vs the other world, in whatever way this other world may be envisioned, constitutes a perennial theme for many religions which also happen to have varying solutions to the tension of human life fomented by the contrast.

Interestingly enough, we find the grapple with such a tension is persistent within the tradition of Hinduism itself. For instance, the Vedas in general is very this-worldly oriented, since these earliest holy texts of Hinduism prescribe duties and roles for each class of the society, and hence, care about social order and welfare more than anything else. However, in comparison, the Upanishads, as analyzed in previously units, views that all those elaborated ritual prescriptions in the Vedas do not have ultimate value in helping individuals to be liberated from the endlessly suffering life cycle of samsara. Instead, the Upanishads urges individuals to leave the society, enter forests and undergo harsh ascetic practices in order to find their genuine Self, Ataman, to eventually get united with Brahman and achieve individual spiritual liberation. Seen from this prospective, the Upanishads is other-worldly oriented in both its philosophy and its practice.

What the Bhagavad Gita achieves is to redirect our spiritual attention from the sublime other-worldliness of the Upanishads back to the all too real world perceived by the Vedas, but while doing so, the Bhagavad Gita also synthesizes key insights from both the Vedic and Upanishadic traditions so as to present a worldview which is simultaneously metaphysically sublime and socially grounded. In a certain sense, this is very similar to what the Ruist canon, called Zhong Yong (which we will discuss later), tries to achieve: to stay centered (Zhong) in the everyday world (yong).

The ethical dilemma that the protagonist of the epic, Arjuna, faces is all too familiar to everyday human life: on the one hand, as a warrior, Arjuna has to fulfill his duty to fight a just war because his uncle, the infamous Duryodhana, was a wicked and relentless ruler who employed all plots to invade and occupy the land originally belonging to Arjuna’s father. On the other hand, if Arjuna fought the war, he would have to kill his own family relatives, teachers, and friends who were politically affiliated to the tribe of Duryodhana. So, in a word, if we were Arjuna, the situation would be like this: the most evil and dangerous person in the world happens to be our close family member, and as a public officer, we have to punish and kill him in order to recover the order for the whole world.

None of the two wisdom traditions, the Vedas and the Upanishads, can provide answers to Arjuna’s dilemma. If according to the Vedas, the fulfillment of Arjuna’s warrior duties would lead to dire consequences; however, if according to the Upanishads, fleeing the battlefield and then meditating in forests seem a rather shameful, and even pointless non-starter for a warrior like Arjuna who is needed by the people living on the endangered land. So, what should Arjuna do?

The persuasion given by Arjuna’s charioteer, who is also an avatar of the Hindu God Krishna, is threefold, which is also three different kinds of “Yoga,” viz., disciplines: the jnanayoga, the discipline of knowledge; karmayoga, the discipline of action; and bhaktiyoga, the discipline of devotion.

In the jnanayoga, the Lord Krishna tried to convince Arjuna through revealing a knowledge, a truth about human “self”: the genuine human self is Atman, and Atman is indestructible. It endures in multiple life cycles, and therefore, people killed on the battleground are not really dead. In this way, Bhagavad Gita employs the philosophy of Upanishads for a spiritual persuasion which directs Arjuna’s attention to human life here and now.

In the karmayoga, the Lord Krishna stated that in order to achieve ultimate spiritual liberation, Arjuna still needs to fulfill his duty, just as the Vedas once prescribes to a warrior. However, Arjuna needs to perform his duty without regard to its consequences, and hence, is expected to achieve a perfect inner equanimity, peace and serenity without being distracted by any outside realities during the middle of Arjuna’s pursuit of the dutiful deeds. In this way, Bhagavad Gita affirms the duty and ritual system elaborated by the Vedas, but re-presents it using the spiritual practice of the Upanishads, and ultimately, urges for a sublime spiritual liberation within situations of human life here and now.

Finally, in the bhaktiyoga, the Lord Krishna realizes that ordinary human beings may be very difficult to achieve the sublime this-worldliness described above, and therefore, Krishna urges Arjuna to unswervingly devote his attention and energies to the worship of Himself, so that Arjuna can find a spiritual anchor conveniently and practically in his everyday mundane life. In comparison to the Vedas and the Upanishads, this devotional dimension of Bhagavad Gita is a unique contribution, and makes the spiritual resources of the Hindu religion not limited in elite circles of priests and hermit renunciates, but widely accessible to ordinary human beings. In the later medieval Hinduism, this bhaktiyoga of the Bhagavad Gita was developed into a full devotional movement, and ever since, Hindu people in varying times and places can choose their favorite god or goddess to worship in order to reach their spiritual liberation in their everyday life.

Sincerely, I am always delightful to read the Bhagavad Gita because of the comprehensiveness that it presents about Hindu spirituality. The genre of its writing, an epic dialogue, is also accessible to readers with its philosophical rigor and literary taste. What I talked about so far is just the surface of this incredibly rich Hindu text, and I decide not to talk any more lest it deprives you of the pleasure of reading it yourself.

Hallo, This is Dr. Bin Song at Washington College for the course of “Comparative Religion: Eastern.”

In the first unit of the course, I talked about my interest in religious studies has been driven by two questions I asked to myself triggered by my initial religious experience: what is the meaning of the experience, and how to maintain it? In varying world religious traditions, the first question is answered by the so-called discipline of “theology,” the central concern of which is about exploring whether there is some “ultimate reality” which conditions all other realities while itself being able to provide a panoramic, holistic view towards all realities. Depending upon approaches taken by religions, the “ultimate reality” has its varying names and specifications: Yahweh, God, Allah, Brahman, Sunyata, Tian, Dao, etc.

So, what is religious experience all about? The answer given by a religion is normally that it is about an individual’s personal experience of a sort of ultimate reality. And then, how to maintain it? Through varying religious practices, such as the participation of liturgy, the performance of ritual, chanting, dancing, meditation, prayer, etc. Personally, I believe the Confucian tradition, or should we call, the Ru tradition, provides good answers to both of these two questions, and thus, my personal lifestyle is anchored in such a tradition and in this sense, you can also say my faith is in Ruism. However, this personal orientation is definitely based upon my study of a variety of traditions. In particular, in order to figure out which sort of “theology” is the best fit, we do not only need to learn historical writings within a given tradition; we also need to broadly study varying subjects and disciplines so that we can make sure the consistency and interconnection between one’s theology and a gazillion other aspects of human life and civilization. During the process, one’s theological view could surely be revised and adapted, and in my candid view, it is among the most rewarding pursuits via anchored, yet broad religious studies that one can continually line up one’s theology together with evolving human experience step by step. At least, this way of religious studies can help individuals to find the “wholeness” of one’s life, and thus, re-obtain a certain kind of deep “integrity” for one’s life.

While studying varying theologies in the world, a basic contrast we can find regarding how religions conceptualize their ultimate reality is theism vs non-theism. Here, I carefully choose the term “non-theism” rather than “atheism” because atheism, such as pure naturalism informed by natural science to affirm nothing holy about the world or Marxism which sees all religions as the opium of human spirit utilized by a ruling class to oppress the others, is an antithesis to the traditional Judeo-Christian theism, and hence, not typically considered as a religious worldview. However, “non-theism” denies that ultimate reality can be conceived as an omnipotent personal God or a supreme deity out of the consideration that a personal God cannot be so “ultimate” as to be able to condition all other realities to provide that needed panoramic worldview. Instead, non-theism believes that the genuinely ultimate reality shall be an all-pervading consciousness without a super agency to issue the consciousness, an all-encompassing energy-field, or simply an ever-generating life-force which is itself original, holy, all powerful, but just cannot be conceptualized as a personal God. In other words, if “atheism” is an antithesis of theism, “non-theism” just presents a different theology from theism, and using a further analysis which we will indicate in Hinduism, “non-theism” can even be compatible with theism since God or gods can still be worshiped within an overall non-theistic theological framework.

In the two foundational scriptures of Hinduism, the Vedas and the Upanishads (the Upanishads is actually part of the Vedas, but it was written significantly later and presented a distinctive style of Hindu spirituality, so scholars normally mention these two scriptures separately), the contrast between theism and non-theism is prominent, with theism being practically prioritized while non-theism being theologically prioritized. Let me explain why this is so in the following.

“Theism” is prioritized practically in the Vedas because 1) the social order of ancient Indian civilization needs a cosmic justification, and thus, as exemplified by the mythology of Purusha (the Man, in the assigned reading pp. 54, section 10.90), the sacrifice of varying parts of the body of this primordial holy giant leads to the creation of the caste system, which is a major organizational principle of ancient Indian society. And 2) the being and order of natural phenomena observed by human beings need to be explained, and hence, the sequence of creation based upon the activities of “a single body shaped like a man” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishads, pp.55, ) gives rise to reasons why varying kinds of creatures are generated and how humans can have a secured relationship with them via the performance of varying rituals. In other words, since the central concern of the Vedic Hinduism is to maintain social order while increasing social welfare, the theology of theism is prioritized so that an elaborated ritual system can be designed and implemented to maintain a rapport with varying gods and goddesses.

However, In the Vedas, particularly in the Upanishads, we discover an even stronger theme of “non-theism” which often acts as an unexpected intruder to the already elaborated theistic worldview, and thus, furnishes an indescribable philosophical and theological depth to Hindu spirituality. For instance, in the Creation Hymn of the Rig Veda, the earliest Veda that we can read, the existence of “gods” is depicted as “came afterwards,” whereas the earliest being in the world is just a life force or pure desire which “breathed, windless, by its own impulse” (Hymn 10.129, pp. 55). Also, in chapter one of the Brihada’ranyaka Upanishads, the creation made by the single body shaped like a man is finally depicted as “brahman’s super-creation,” which gives rise to all the immortal “gods.” (pp.56) Obviously, what is genuinely ultimate in these Vedic verses is thought of as being beyond what any theistic concept can capture. In other parts of the Upanishads, we can also discern some philosophical reason why non-theism is thought of as being more ultimate than theism. If the ultimate reality is a personal God, then, this supreme person will have to perceive the world and varying worldly creatures as an object while Himself being a perceiver. In this case, the entire realm of being will have to be divided as a perceiver versus the perceived, which, in the view of those Upanishadic authors, is unfortunate and inadequate since in the experience of deep meditation, everything in the universe merges into One, and thus, what is ultimate per se must not be dualistic. Ultimately, this Upanishadic non-dualism (assigned reading, pp. 57) gives rise to a typical trope used prevalently by the medieval tradition of Vedanta Hinduism, viz., ultimate reality as an all-encompassing, infinite, yet joyful consciousness without any division.

This deep spiritual vision of non-duality is based upon sophisticated philosophizing and ascetic religious practice, but once achieved, it is in a great tension with the theistic version of Hindu spirituality which emphasizes social order based upon distinctions more than individual liberation based upon non-distinction. More importantly, not everybody’s spiritual capacity is up to this sort of elite religious lifestyle of Upanishadic renunciates, and typically, ordinary humans’ religious practice needs something, such as gods or goddesses, to hold on to so as to devote and facilitate their everyday spiritual life. Therefore, eventually, the way that ancient Hinduism solves this tension is to put non-theism as theologically prior, but theism as practically prior. In more concrete terms, this means that individuals will be expected to fulfill their duties and roles within a given stratified human society, and choose the god or goddess whom they feel right and good to worship; however, individuals also need to realize that the sake of performing duties is not just for maintaining social order, and the devotion to one’s personal gods is not just for their individual practical needs either. Ultimately, beyond these duties, roles, and devoted gods, there is something even more ultimate, more universalistic and more grounding which can bring everything in the world into a unified whole. In this way, the journey of Hindu spirituality expects individuals to achieve their spiritual liberation simultaneously and seamlessly in the process of living out their everyday social life here and now.

We will find such a synthesis in the text of Bhagavad Gita, and which will be the topic of our next unit.

Hallo, this is Dr. Bin Song at Washington College.

The first religion that we will learn for quite a deal in the course of Comparative Religion: Eastern is Hinduism. This order of learning is not only because Hinduism, as one of the most affiliated traditions in the world, is also the eldest living one. More importantly, the complexity and richness of Hinduism would just highlight every purpose of religious studies in college, which we discussed in my last video, to an unprecedented extent.

The first and foremost thing we need to know about “Hinduism” is that “Hinduism” is a somewhat misleading term. If we call some religious phenomenon as “-ism,” the term seems to suggest that there must be a central authority, a set of settled scriptures, a clearly articulated body of doctrines, and an authorized series of personal and communal ritual-performance for the thing that is called such a “-ism,” just like Catholicism or other kinds of established Christianity. However, none of these assumptions work in the case of “Hinduism.” The term “Hindu” derives from the Sanskrit “Sindhu,” which means “a large body of water.” Originally, it was used in Arabic to refer to the people who lived in the Indus Valley, which is indeed covered by a large body of rivers and waters. It was not until the arrival of European colonizers that “Hinduism” was coined up by European scholars as a collective term for the religious beliefs and practices of some of the people who live in India, notably not including the people who lived in India but practiced religions not deemed as indigenous (such as Islam). In other words, since the term “Hindu” was originally a geographic term, and then, used by aliens to designate vaguely everything that was thought of religiously as being indigenous to the people living in that area, an immediate question we can ask is that: did those indigenous people practice the same religion?

The trickiness of this question is that, as partly argued by the assigned reading (p.42), there are strong reasons for both the “yes” and “no” answers to the question.

For the No side, scholars may cite that for each stance advocated by religious practitioners in the so-called “Hinduism,” you can always find a contradictory or simply different stance in the same tradition, and in general, these diverse views of religion are abundantly tolerated and lavishly practiced throughout the entire Hindu history. This is not only true to varying views within the so-called Hindu tradition; the toleration is also applicable to apparently non-Hindu traditions. For instance, in history, non-Hindu traditions such as Islam and Christianity all once had a strong hold on certain portions of the Hindu population; however, as a Hindu practitioner, one can easily see Jesus or Allah as a legitimate God who serves the specific need of the people who worship them, but ultimately, in the eyes of this Hindu practitioner, these Gods, together with varying Gods and Goddesses worshiped by Hindu people in villages and cities, are just the many manifestations of the same Ultimate Reality, the same God, Brahman or whichever name you would like to choose to call it. Oddly, even for indigenous traditions that deny such an existence of ultimate reality, such as Buddhism, the founders of these traditions, such as Siddhartha Gautama in the same case, can still be seen as a holy person that reveals certain features of Ultimate Reality, and thus, serves the specific need of their followers. As a consequence, the statue of Buddha can be readily observed in India which is worshiped by devotees with their special religious dispositions. In a word, the so-called Hindu tradition really indicates an extremely accommodating, tolerating and inclusive nature that we can describe it as a gigantic melting pot which leaves out nothing that would like to get in and does not abandon anything that has already arrived.

Nevertheless, for the “Yes” answer, you’ll also find many scholars, particularly Hindu scholars, who may strongly advocate that “Hinduism” can be used as a collective name to refer to the long-standing cultural and religious legacy of the Hindu nation. For these scholars, the seemingly ultra-diverse feature of Hinduism is a strength, rather than a weakness. It speaks to the extraordinarily vibrant and dynamic nature of Hinduism, and therefore, provides a rich resource to solidify a Hindu identity in the modern world. More importantly, if we learn details of the Hindu history, we’ll frequently find cases where religious thinkers and practitioners would intend to synthesize all available religious sources before them, although the authenticity of these syntheses themselves succumbed to constant debate, contestation and adaptation. Since “synthesis” is not a totally unfamiliar phenomenon to the so-called Hindu tradition, we cannot deny the possibility of the unity of Hinduism either.

So, what is my take on this question, the one about the unity vs diversity of the so-called Hindu tradition?

In my view, the unity of Hinduism is best understood as a long lineage of human trials and endeavors to grapple with shared both local and large-scaled questions, rather than any read-made, closed system of answers. Since the lineage is essentially a dynamic process of grappling with conundrums, rather than dictating answers to them, we can also understand that the unity of Hinduism is a fluid, evolving, and essentially kinematic unity.

In more concrete terms, I would indicate this dynamic, unfolding unity of Hinduism in three of its foundational texts, which we will focus upon in our later learning. And these texts are the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita.

The central concern of Vedic Hinduism, as it lies at the very early beginning of the Hindu civilization, is how to maintain social order and increase social welfare of all humans. The solution the Vedas provides is to assign roles and duties to each class of the society, and a class of priesthood will take charge of presiding over the performance of varying rituals so as to maintain the social order. A notable instance in this regard is the creation of a caste system and its cosmological justification in the Vedas, through which the highest class, the priesthood, is charged with performing rituals so as to maintain the harmonized order between human society and the entire cosmos.

However, humans have their intrinsic individual needs of spiritual transformation regardless of classes and social roles. Therefore, in the Upanishadic Hinduism, we find a strong individualistic element of Hindu spirituality which defies any non-egalitarian prescription of religious life. Here, the essential goal of human life is thought of as rediscovering one’s genuine self, which is called Atman, and its liberation consists in a union with Brahman, the ultimate reality which creates and sustains the entire universe. Accordingly, the practice of Upanishadic Hinduism is very ascetic. One is encouraged to become a renunciate to abandon one’s household so as to enter a forest for a prolonged period of spiritual practice in order to achieve Moksha, the final spiritual liberation in terms of the union between Atman and Brahman.

However, the path to religious asceticism is philosophically complicated and practically arduous, which is not fit for every human being. More importantly, if all humans abandoned their civilization and went to forests, the flourishing of human society would become inconceivable. Therefore, in the time of the composition of the Bhagavad Gita, Hinduism developed a strong “devotional” dimension to re-develop a this-worldly oriented ethics and spirituality. Its solution to the tension between individual liberation and social welfare is that as long as individuals fulfill their duties regardless of consequences, they can achieve Moksha outside of the forest, here and now. Individuals are encouraged to choose whatever God they find intimacy with to worship, and their devotion to such a worship will help them to live a religiously liberating life without undergoing all those harsh, ascetic disciplines.

The text of Bhagavad Gita was written before the common era, and after that, Hinduism continually evolved, and indicated the extraordinary diverse nature which we analyzed before. However, the lineage of thinking and practice as indicated by the sequence of Vedas – Upanishads – Gita in terms of “social welfare” – “individual liberation” – “liberation in society” provides a shared body of terms, themes and questions for all later development of Hinduism to inherit, unpack, enrich, and diversify.

Honestly, although I have taught Hinduism for several times before, I still feel greatly fascinated by the endless story about the evolution of the so-called Hindu tradition. I am amazed by its spiritual depth, philosophical rigor, and diverse and colorful religious practices. I believe this is among the traditions you can get the most out of from the perspective of college religious studies, and I look forward to hearing your learning experience of it during the course.

Hallo, this is Dr. Song at Washington College for the course of “Comparative Religion: Eastern.”

My interest in religions derives from my unexpected, beautiful and transient religious experience at my late adolescence, which was triggered by my practice of transcribing ancient Chinese classics. One of these experiences transpired roughly like this: after I spent some hours in the morning transcribing ancient Chinese Zen Buddhist texts, I walked outside of the library and stepped onto a trail in the university’s campus to stretch myself and breathe some fresh air. There is a small pond in front of me, and the weather was nice, some green trees and colorful flowers flourishing beside the trail. Suddenly, there was a feeling of joy, lightness and transparency which pervaded my entire body. I felt my entire consciousness was connected to everything in my surroundings, and the only language I could use to describe that feeling to my friends at that time was like this: ordinarily, joy derives from the fulfillment of some goal to fulfill; the acquisition of it needs time, and is based upon efforts. However, at that moment, I felt joyful just because “I am there”; in other words, no external things need to be grasped in order to achieve that sort of joy. Because of the joy, I also felt at a deep ease with myself. It seemed that my life was already good no matter what happened to the outside world.

I had other religious experiences because of other types of practices, but regarding the influence, this first one just described is still the cream of the crop. As mentioned, the experience was transformative, yet extremely transient. Because of its transient nature, I was extremely perplexed by two things: 1) What is the experience about? Apart from a purely subjective feeling, does the experience refer to anything that is beyond my feeling? In other words, I was struggled to articulate the meaning of the experience. 2) If the experience is so beautiful and makes me that joyful, why is it so transient? How should I deal with the gap between this ecstatic bliss and the mundaneness of other everyday moments of my life? In other words, practically, I was struggling with how to maintain that sort of blissful religious experience. It has already been almost 20 years since the described experience occurred to me, and in a hindsight, it is mainly the two questions I asked to myself which drove me to continue to learn all sorts of philosophies and religions so that right now, I can sit here, and communicate with young minds about my learning experience of religions.

Learning religions at college is very different from doing it in a church, in one’s own family, or by one’s own. In college, I, as an instructor in religion courses, would expect you can combine two spirits when you learn religions: firstly, the spirit of critical thinking. This implies you need to carefully think through all presented materials, lifestyles, ways of worship and all other religious matters to eventually ask a question to yourself whether these religious matters are true, appropriate or valuable. This spirit is quite consistent with other aspects of liberal arts education, and I hope you can maintain the consistency in all the taught classes in the college. Secondly, the spirit of integrative learning. It implies that you can incorporate what you judge as valuable of those religious matters into your daily life, so as to eventually transform your spirituality and personhood for the sake of living a good human life and continual human flourishing. In comparison, the second spirit is more challenging than the first, since it requires more than thinking. However, in a liberal arts college, we have the resources to facilitate your integrative learning. Through regularly participating the class, and in particular, finishing those immersive exercises and assignments that I design for the course, I hope you can get the best of liberal arts learning of religion in this semester.

Using more details, I hope you can pay attention to three aspects of “religion” that we’ll learn during the course:

Firstly, the philosophical aspect. For instance, when the Upanishad of ancient Hinduism talks about every human being has their genuine self, Atman, which is ultimately united with the essence of the entire universe, Brahman, you need to firstly understand what these terms mean; secondly, what arguments which those Upanishadic thinkers raised to support their claim, and finally, how this claim embeds itself with varying aspects of the everyday life of human beings who practiced that religion. Similar questions can surely be asked regarding other similar claims of other religions.

Secondly, the social aspect. One fascinating feature of all existing world religions is that they are deeply social phenomena, and religions are vastly different from each other regarding their ways of organizing affiliates to live an ideal religious life. For instance, the emphasis upon the lineage of religious authenticity is very strong in Buddhism; some sects in Buddhism were very proud of their uninterrupted lineage of transmission of wisdom directly from the person of the Buddha. However, despite having temples and priests, Hinduism tends to be very loose regarding its social organization, with no central authority, no single set of doctrines, nor any central religious leader. More impressively, the Confucian tradition (another name of which is the Ru tradition or Ruism, which we will learn in details later) does not have any priesthood or monastery system to sustain its religious status in ancient China; instead, it is so intertwined with other seemingly “secular” institutions such as family, school and government that many scholars doubt whether we can call Ruism a religion at all. So, while learning religions at college, we can also learn varying societies that religions are embedded in, and through this, you will have a greater command of inter-cultural competency which would be very beneficial for your career development in an increasingly globalized world.

Thirdly, the practical aspect. According to nowadays’ common use of these two terms, that “religion” is thought of as a different subject from “philosophy” is mainly because religion is rich on individual and societal practices which aim for deep, thorough, and comprehensive spiritual transformation, while “philosophy” is mostly treated as an intellectual endeavor rich on analysis and argumentation. We’ll read many contemplative writings by varying authors in the addressed religions in the East, and since I am personally a long-time meditation practitioner, I’ll also show you how to do meditation in a Confucian style. However, meditation is just one of a gazillion fasions of religious practice that exist in history and in the world. At the end of the course, I hope you can find some way of practice which you feel comfortable to do in a daily basis, and thus, can really benefit your mental and physical health.

Good, this is all I want to say at the beginning of the course, and I look forward to working with you down the road.