Hinduism and Christianity share the same deep truth. At the core of most major religions, there is spiritual wisdom that shatters our imagination. Two religious texts that illustrate this perfectly are the Bible and The Bhagavad Gita. For most of the Western world, Christianity is a familiar concept, but Hinduism isn’t.
Hinduism isn’t a religion, per se. It’s more of a way of life, and this way of thinking existed long before Christianity. It can be debated that many of Christ’s teachings are borrowed directly from Hindu beliefs; there are even theories that Christ spent much of his time in India, learning to enhance his spiritual awareness.
The Bible
Besides the nuances of what originates where, we have to look deeply at one specific teaching that is universal for all humans.
35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”37 Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
Matthew 22:35–40
38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
Jesus spoke of this deep message taught in the Old Testament, originally by Moses.
4Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One. 5And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
Deuteronomy 6:4-5
This message is interesting and important. Both Jesus and Moses are speaking about us focusing all of our attention on God.
I’m not a big fan of the idea of God being some person or entity watching over us on a cloud in the sky. This idea is overused by television and media and creates the wrong impression for people who are genuinely curious about what to believe.
The idea that an old white man is in the sky creates a distorted understanding. Surely, the metaphor is intended to be something along the lines that God is beyond our understanding, we are on Earth and the sky is far away from us, so God’s realm is beyond the human realm.
Yet, not everyone understands abstract concepts; many people accept words in their literal sense. That is why we need to cut out what has been corrupted over time and return to the source.
Hinduism has many ancient scriptures that are full of deep wisdom. I love the message Jesus and Moses try to spread, the idea of finding unity with God through our focus, but this message may be hard for the everyday person to understand.
To find unity with God, we have to go deep into our own essence and feel the experience of unity, in order to actualize the concept in our consciousness. When we link the text in The Bhagavad Gita, we can take a step closer to our own actualization.
The Bhagavad Gita
A brief summary of The Bhagavad Gita: A young prince (Arjuna) is at a crossroads in his life, while both sides of his family are fighting for control over their kingdom. The prince has to decide whether or not he will kill his cousins and uncles or be killed by them; he is emotionally torn, and his friend Krishna, who is God sent in the form of a human, reveals to him the truths of reality.
The Bhagavad Gita is a must-read for anyone who wants to discover the deeper meaning of life. Krishna and Jesus are quite similar; they are both God descended to Earth. What makes Krishna profound is that his teachings are more explicit than those of Jesus.
Some of Krishna’s profound teachings (translated by Eknath Easwaran) include:
“Through lack of understanding, people believe that I, the Unmanifest, have entered into some form. They fail to realize my true nature, which transcends birth and death. Few see through the veil of maya. The world, deluded, does not know that I am without birth and changeless. I know everything about the past, the present, and the future, Arjuna; but there is no one who knows me completely.”
The Bhagavad Gita
“Those who remember me at the time of death will come to me. Do not doubt this. Whatever occupies the mind at the time of death determines the destination of the dying; always they will tend toward that state of being. Therefore, remember me at all times and fight on. With your heart and mind intent on me, you will surely come to me. When you make your mind one-pointed through regular practice of meditation, you will find the supreme glory of the Lord.”
“I am easily attained by the person who always remembers me and is attached to nothing else. Such a person is a true yogi, Arjuna. Great souls make their lives perfect and discover me; they are freed from mortality and the suffering of this separate existence. Every creature in the universe is subject to rebirth, Arjuna, except the one who is united with me.”
Krishna’s teachings reveal that all of our attention should be focused on him. Sounds similar to the teachings of Jesus and Moses, right?
At the end of the day, we can find God everywhere and within everything. For someone whose mind is not focused on God, this concept is hard to grasp, but it’s never too late to start.
Life becomes more real and more meaningful when we become aware and start to see how God is everywhere. Jesus taught us to love our neighbours as if they were ourselves. When we focus the mind, heart and soul on God, we understand that God is within us, but that God also exists in the people around us.
We honour God by becoming aware of their presence in every action, every thought, every moment and every person.
If there’s one idea we can all learn to value, it is the idea of giving all of our attention to God. That means we must treat the people around us with the dignity and respect that they deserve. God is within them and within us.
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