There is a philosophical story behind the customary news stories reported each year about the two gigantic Vaisakhi parades that will be held this Saturday morning in Vancouver and next Saturday in north Surrey.
The Canadian public tends to associate Vaisakhi with Sikhism, since B.C. has an unusually large cohort of this 27-million-member religion, Sikhs are among the festival’s major local organizers and the holy date marks the birth of the Sikh community.
But Vaisakhi is not just a big day for Metro Vancouver’s roughly 200,000 Sikhs. It is also significant for the region’s more than 50,000 Hindus, who typically take a lower profile among the hundreds of thousands who gather at Vaisakhi parades.
Before the formation of the Sikh community, or khalsa, by Guru Gobindh Singh in 1699, Vaisakhi had long been a harvest festival throughout much of Hindu-majority India.
For many of the world’s 900 million Hindus, Vaisakhi still marks the beginning of the sacred new year. Hindus celebrate Vaisakhi in many ways, depending on regional customs. Most share gifts and meals and go to temple, while some swim in the Ganges River.
Unlike Sikhism (and Christianity and Islam), Hinduism has no founders. Its roots are in Indian wisdom traditions that existed thousands of years before the birth of either Buddha, Jesus or Sikhism’s early gurus.
Hinduism, as a result, is a diverse, pluralistic and often-sophisticated religion. Many are convinced the ancient philosophy has more overlaps than do other religions with Western science, psychology and spirituality.
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Western philosophers, theologians and even theoretical scientists are being drawn to Hindu teachings. They are finding that key Hindu metaphysical concepts are compatible with Western ideas about evolutionary theory and European philosophical traditions emphasizing creativity and self-realization.
With Vaisakhi festivals set to begin around the world, here is a primer to some important philosophical beliefs held by Hindus.
The similarities between these foundational Hindu beliefs and Western thinking are spelled out by global expert Jeffery D. Long, a Pennsylvania professor and author of A Vision for Hinduism and The Historical Dictionary of Hinduism.
Brahman is similar to “creativity”
In Hinduism, Brahman is the word used to describe the sum total of reality: “the whole.” Brahman is said to be the reality from which all things emerge and all things return.
One image for Brahman is that of “a vibrating energy field.” Long says it is similar to the reality outlined by quantum physicists. It’s helpful to think of Brahman as the creativity that underlies everything.
Ishvara is like “ordering principle”
Brahman is impersonal. But that is not true of Ishvara, which is another word for the hidden ordering principle in the world.
To many Hindus, Ishvara is the name of God, without which there would be no universe. Ishvara, to Hindus, is the force that brings life, including animals and humans, out of the creative chaos of Brahman.
Like many Western spiritual thinkers today, Long writes in a chapter in The Handbook of Process Theology, prominent Hindu teachers such as Muktanananda and Vivikananda are panentheists. They believe God “is in all beings — and all beings, at the same time, are in God.”
Maya means imperfect “existence”
Maya is a word that basically refers to existence, with its many problems.
Significantly, the word “Maya” can be translated as both “ignorance” and “creative power.”
Within maya humans are beset by joys and troubles. But humans do not realize the true state of reality in maya. They are instead subject to karma, which is the sum total of all their decisions and actions, good and bad.
Moksha is the promise of “liberation”
Moksha is the Hindu concept of spiritual liberation. It is the ultimate aim of every Hindu and, at a deep philosophical level, provides the foundational goal of every sacred Hindu celebration, including Vaisakhi.
Hindu teachers say people can attain psychological liberation from the painful cycle of continuous reincarnation by overcoming their ignorance, their sense of separation from Ishvara.
Although Hinduism does not have a uniform teaching about this state of bliss known as moksha, many believe it marks the end of “wandering” through existence.
The liberation of moksha occurs when seekers realize they are one with everything in the universe, Long says. It is no small revelation.
Moksha enables humans to “surf the waves of cosmic consciousness” — becoming “conscious co-partners with God in the unfolding of the divine vision of creative potential.”