Final Project: Hinduism Yoga

History

Much like Hinduism, the exact history of yoga are unknown, besides that it originated in the East. However, the first hints of it are shown in ancient Shamanism and the Rigveda, which means that yoga is at least 5,000 years old. Shamanism focused on being the religious mediators of the community whereas the Rigveda is a sacred collection of hymns. However, both of these focused on yoga as a method to understand the world and then to apply to yourself. This later shifted to understanding yourself better in order to reach a certain level of self-enlightenment. As time passed, the poses and meditation that is commonly associated with modern day yoga were implemented into the system, and some of these elements came from Buddhist teachings.

Scripture

Luke 11:10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and the one who knocks it will be opened

Romans 3:23 for fall have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord

Even though these verses are from the Christian Bible, I think they still hold some truth to Hinduism.

Luke 11:10 is about having dedication for religion. In Hinduism, a person must do good things and attain good karma in order to end the endless cycle of reincarnation, so the concepts of discipline and devotion definitely exists in Hinduism as well.

Romans 3:23 and 6:23 mention the price of sin and the prize for the good. Although it isn't the same as the heaven in Christianity, Hinduism also revolves around this as well. In class, we saw the class system of Hinduism, ranging from lowly animals to priests. In this case, the price of sin would be that you would go down the class system until you eventually become an undesirable animal such as a dung beetle. However, if you did many good deeds in your life, you would be able to end the reincarnation cycle and reach nirvana.

Yoga in Hinduism

There are four types of yoga in Hinduism, each distinct but with the uniform purpose of the yogi trying to reach nirvana. They are:

1) Jana Yoga (Knowledge)- Identify self with the Brahman by withdrawing yourself from your own body. That way, a person no longer feels the finite and sensible parts of life such as pain.

2) Bhakti Yoga (Love)- Direct love towards the Brahman. End result is to love Brahman as the protector, friend, father, and spouse.

3) Karma Yoga (Work)- Work becomes liberating since Hindus view it as the Brahman working through the person.

4) Raja Yoga (Psychological)- Peel away outer layers of our body so that nothing affects the person but the Brahman which absorbs the ones who succeed.

My Version of Yoga

1) Knowledge- I think an important part of religious maturation is to break out of our comfort zone of knowledge. What I mean is, everyone has a certain area of expertise that they earned from living in a certain environment. However, if we break these boundaries and allow ourselves to take in information that we are unfamiliar or comfortable with, it will allow us to reach a higher degree of intelligence. Although Hindus aim to reach nirvana, since we are all of different religions and beliefs, the common goal of becoming wiser is suitable for yoga, as well, since it is training the mind through knowledge.

2) Love- In Hinduism, love was mainly turned towards the Brahman. However, I believe that it is more important to give affection towards those we find it hard to do so to. It's "easy" to love our friends and family, but the moment that we realize that it is possible to love our enemies as well, a unique bond forms between these people so that enemies can become friends as well. It won't happen in the blink of an eye, nor will it be easy for anyone. However, just the realization that this is possible is enough to spark a change.

3) Work- When we think of work, our minds fill with dread. But really, work is a positive factor within our life that provides a role as a driving force as well as an anchor of stability. Without work, life would just be a constant repetitive cycle of doing the same things over and over again. Despite our constant grumblings about it, without work, we would not know the pleasure of taking a break. Every positive entity must be contrasted with a negative entity in order to distinguish each other as being different. Despite work being a struggling task for all of us, it is still one of the most important aspects of our lives as it prevents the human race from becoming ignorant of what we are blessed with when we receive it. If we didn't have it, our lives would just be heavenly and we would not even know it. Nothing is more boring than perfect.

4) Psychological- Hinduism teaches to train the physical body to enhance your mentality. Once you completed this training, you would lose your touch with the world and instead be united with the Brahman. However, I think that this is actually not very good since you become devoid of the most important of human qualities: emotions. So, my yoga for psychological training is very simple: try. No matter what kind of situation you are in, challenge yourself psychologically to always strive to be the very best you can be. After a certain point in our lives, we reach a stage where we are just content with whatever happens, as long as it is passable. This isn't exactly bad, but when you get too comfortable, it can become psychologically unhealthy. So, you have to get rid of this mindset of being used to something. Because when you get used to something, you eventually become content with whatever happens. Marriage could be an example. Oftentimes, couples become too comfortable with living with each other after so long and eventually forget why they married in the first place. They have replaced the concept of love with satisfaction in their minds, when it should not have changed at all.

Reflection

This year, I came to the strange realization that I am actually a Hindu. I don't know exactly what I believe in, but I accept the large possibility of a greater being out there. And that's what I love about Hinduism. If all of the religions were to be drawn with a venn diagram, Hinduism would be the circle surrounding all of the others. It is the universally understandable and flexible religion, sort of like how the U.S. constitution was created to fit different times as a flexible document. It also shows how there can be many different methods of worship. There are the well-known ways such as prayer and fast, but Hinduism has showed me a lot more this year that was very unexpected to me. For example, in my mind, heavy metal and Christianity did not go hand in hand. Most of the music associated with Christianity that I knew were quiet songs. But the rock band Stryper has managed to change this pattern and create a new genre of their own: Christian rock. Still, the most shocking method of worship that I found out about was yoga. I thought it was just an exercise routine to become more fit, but that was only a quarter of what it really was. Yoga is a method of Hindu worship meant to train the body and mind to connect with the Brahman. Although I tried all of the ones that I have listed, the one that really made an impact on me was the Knowledge yoga. In my case, I broke my comfort zone through rock music, primarily heavy metal. Since I have a introspective personality, I thought that quiet music would be the only music that I would like. Instead, I realized that I love heavy metal music. Despite not bringing as much change in me as reaching nirvana would, I can truly understand the impact that yoga has on us through my own modern religious experience.

Heavy Metal

김경호 Kim Kyungho - Shout

Skid Row - Youth Gone Wild

Spirited Away

The first mention of Shintoism was when they were driving on the dirt road and found little houses on the side. They said that some people believed that little spirits lived inside of them. The river spirit who looked like an old man and Haku are also a part of the Shintoism in Japan since people believed that there were gods within the many things of our world, which meant that both of them had their respective rivers. Although the characters are the most obvious form in which this religion is presented to us, the setting that the story takes place in, the bathhouse, is also a part of Shintoism. One of the major beliefs of Shintoism is a ritual washing, where you purify yourself through water. In this way, the process of ridding yourself of the pollution of bad thoughts is also shown in the movie, especially through the large river spirit who looked like a stink spirit at first. The major reason why Chihiro went on her journey was to save her parents. However, the underlying message beneath it that she was unaware of was actually to save herself. During the exposition, we are shown a little of her character before embarking on her quest; Chihiro is stubborn, ignorant, and whiney. She gives no sign of wanting to rid herself of the frustration of having to move. However, as the story progresses, Chihiro changes dramatically into a mature and selfless person. In the same way that the river spirit went to the bathhouse to be cleaned, Chihiro also acheived this same goal by going to the bathhouse. But in her case, it was to rid herself of what had plagued her on the inside: her own personality. Chihiro mainly learned how to be a mature person who could act with initiative. She was forced into a situation that most of us only begin to go through as adults: the process of working. In contrast to her not wanting to do anything during the beginning of the movie, by the end, Chihiro has defeated a huge monster, saved two dragons, and managed to make fantastical beings that we can never meet love her. Any one of those would have been impossible to the old Chihiro had she not picked up certain traits along the way: selflessness, kindness, and, most important of all, courage. Nearly every scene with her, a ten year-old girl, involves bravery of some sort. Chihiro was unhesitant when walking along a pipe mid-air with no support, fed a huge, semi-conscious dragon with large teeth, and didn't blink an eye in front of a black monster that was wanted to eat her. Although this is the changes she goes through during the plot of the movie itself, we don't get an idea of what how Chihiro further develops afterwards. However, we get a bit of a hint with her changed attitude and speech. At first, she was grumbling about having to go to a new school. But when her parents introduce her to the idea again by the end, she casually replies with, "I think I'll be all right." And why wouldn't she be? She has done more things and gone through more struggles in a few days than most people do in their life.

Hinduism

“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
Gandhi said this when he was discussing with the other Indian leaders about how to respond to the British. Most of the Indians wanted to strike back at them, but Gandhi knew that this would not work. This is very true since when an Indian mob attack a small police force and behead one of them, it creates a chaotic mess. However, when Indians marched nonviolently against the British as a whole, they were successful. The very next day, the British decided to engage in meetings with Gandhi to discuss independence. I think that the main point that Gandhi was trying to support in saying this was that at one point, one side has to stop the cycle of revenge and violence, and in this case, it was the Indians. It sort of reminds me of a kindergarten argument between two kids. If one hits the other, then they would argue about things like "but he started it!" and other unimportant and immature details. However, the fact that this sort of behavior can be compared with the masses of entire countries shows how futile their fight was until Gandhi finally arrived.

"I am a Muslim, and a Hindu, and a Christian and a Jew; and so are you."
For a Hindu, this could be interpreted in a literal sense. When Gandhi stopped the car to say this to a crowd, he meant that all religions were a way to understand a single face of the whole Brahman, which means that all of them can be included in the vast net of Hinduism. However, for non-Hindus, this could be true as well. In the beginning, Gandhi told his friend that a preacher he knew would not exactly distinguish between which holy book he would read from when speaking. It was as if the religious barriers did not really matter as long as you were worshipping God and being true to His word; which is, essentially in every book, to live a good life. So, it shows that the religious blockades shouldn't necessarily create whole divides within a single society.

The insight that I gained after learning more about Hinduism was that I could probably be defined as one. I didn't realize this before since I knew nothing about it. I believe that there could be higher powers than us in the universe but don't actually know what they are. I guess in a way, I am searching for Brahman as well. I realize that this affects me in a spiritual way since I am trying to understand something that can not be fully understood; but the process itself is what defines me as a religious person. I also realized that we shouldn't be bound to one religion so much in the sense that we come to deny all other aspects. I think that's the beauty of Hinduism. It doesn't really matter what you believe in as long as it is towards the path of your own way of interpreting Brahman. So, acceptance of others comes hand in hand with this. I'm not saying Hinduism is superior or that any one religion is inferior to another. However, the main weakness of other religions is intolerance for one another, but Hinduism so aptly corrects this and which such a simple theory as well. If the only religion to exist had been Hinduism, I'm sure that at least 99% of the past wars could have been evaded. The main root of mass violence was violence and the conquest of others through the excuse that it was for religion. With Hinduism, many of these issues could have been evaded.

Easter

Picture Citation

Before this assembly, I didn't know very much about Easter besides the fact that it is celebrated in commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus. Now, I have a new experience that I can reflect on to understand more about the meaning of Easter and how Christianity is associated with it. Many of the events that took place in the assembly focused on second chances and rising above the temptations of our lives. I'm not sure if this is correct, but I think that Peter is the reason why one of the main morals that Easter reminds us of is having a second chance. Although he denied his association with Jesus three times, he was still forgiven after Jesus rose from the dead. During the speech, it was told that God did this because He is a gracious God, so that through Jesus' dead, all sins are forgiven, which is why we have all received a second chance. Also, in Amazing Grace, it tells the story of John being forgiven by God, despite his blasphemous actions. This as also explained in the skit that Isaac and Reca performed for us. By ringing a bell, they could go back in time and undo a mistake that they made. Afterwards, George played a skit where he rose above the temptations of life. This is also important since during the skit, the voice of God supported him and told him to get up. It shows the help that God gives us all throughout our lives. I don't really understand the concept of the trinity, but I get that God is above all. He made everything, and he knows everything. So, even if one being in this family of three infinitely powerful beings were to die for us, I think that it would be more than enough to pay for all of the sins of man. I am still unsure of my faith, but I understand the depth of the importance and impact that Easter has to everyone, whether they are Christian or not. Even if you don't believe in God, everyone's goal is usually to be a better, more pious person, which is what Easter reminds us of.

My Shema

Haphazard
Unforgiving
Independent

I believe in something similar to "the force" in Star wars. A lot of things in this world happen by chance, such as the birth of every human being. The force, or the laws of physics and science, are also unforgiving. If you fall off of a bridge, no one and nothing will stop you from killing yourself. It doesn't care about you, so you have to look out for your own well being. Also, the "God" that I believe in is representative of independence in two ways. The first way is that it is independent of all human choices. Whatever we do, the force will not change. Whether the human race is wiped out overnight, whether there is a blackout in the main city of a country, or whether I have cancer or not, the sun will still rise tomorrow and the force will begin a new day and be the one to conclude it as well. It is present in everything and dictates what actions are sane and what actions are insane (i.e jumping off of a bridge). The second way that it is independent is that it supports humans to maintain a sense of independence. We have to stay independent from mundane qualities in order to survive everyday. The force defines what a sane action is, so we must follow these rules if we want to live. If we don't, we jump. Or shoot ourselves. Or burn to death. Whatever the choice is, the force will accept it and continue to strive until there is no life left in the universe and even onward from then. The experience that encouraged me to adopt these principles was when my grandpa died from a peach. He couldn't swallow it, so he died a pitiful death with the only thing he could be angry at being a peach. All it would have taken was a sip of water, or somehow, for a god out there to push that peach down a few centimeters. The Christian God is said to work in mysterious ways, but if He is all-powerful, why couldn't he have pushed that peach down? Or solved all of this world's problems in the blink of an eye? If the moral He is trying to teach us is to become more pious, there is no point. For if there were no problems, we would all be good, and the need to be trained to be pious through punishment would be non-existant. I am not angry at God, or any other god, but I just don't see the point in not saving humans when it is so easy for them.
For the question that Ms. James gave me during class, about how order came from an explosion, I explained something similar in an earlier blog post. Although it is a crude example, all humans are alive because we are the ones out of 250,000 sperm to survive. From that, it also depends on what day our parents had sex, since if it was even one day apart, a different human would have been born. The odds that our parents would meet each other on a specific date and fall in love with that person are extremely small as well, as they could have met anyone else. Every single choice that they made in their lives, such as what college to attend, what grades they had in high school, and how well they scored on a test, amount to an astronomically rare opportunity of them meeting. And that isn't it. The choices of my grandparents, their parents, their parents, and so on and so forth continue so that the chances of me, Daniel Juwon Lee, being born are nearly impossible. However, all of the billions of other babies that could have possibly been born also had the same chance, and I was simply chosen by luck by the haphazard force. So, I believe that there are also an infinitely large amount of other possible universes that could have been created, all going down to the science of whether one atom was beside this atom, or if this Hydrogen formed with this other Hydrogen or that one. It is just an example, but you see how the order that came from this was simply chosen out of an infinity of other choices, some of which would have amounted to destruction, and others into an even more orderly universe. The force is unforgiving, since it doesn't give these other alternate realities a chance at surviving, but it is independent of the choices or happenings of anything as well. This is why anything in this universe is based on chance and very risky.

I respect and fear the force. It doesn't care about me, but I have no choice but to be its subordinate, since if I don't, I would die. I won't drop a candle on my foot since the force would burn it, and I won't eat an iPod since it would not feel good. However, all of these choices doesn't affect the force at all, since it isn't a living being, but rather a presence within all living and nonliving beings/objects. It is the one ultimate rule that everything follows and must follow, and this is why I must fear and adhere to it.

My God is not a single being, but is within all beings.
The Force forces all to adhere to it, whether it breathes or not.
I respond by bowing down and wishing it to spare me.
But what is there to bow down to when there is no physical embodiment of the Force?

So I get up
and once again, the process of life begins as I see the Force affecting all matter that is around me.
I am in awe at this concept that I will never grasp but is present in everything I see.
All that is, simply is.

Sacred Poetry

Dolmen

     A dolmen is a stone structure that was used as a tomb about 5000 years ago during 3000 BC. It consists of a large, horizontal slab of stone that is supported by a few other stone slabs of equal size. A dolmen is known for its primary purpose of serving as a tomb to bury the dead, as the remains of many people were found under or near these structures. However, they were also often used for a spiritual reason as well. Several phenomena of earth such as multi-colored light and spontaneous flames that appear near fault lines. Although these strange earth lights can be explained with modern science, in ancient times, it would have been no different from magic. Due to this, many shamans and other religious figures worked to construct dolmens near these strange lights. Once created, they would enter these spiritual realms of abstract earth energies in order to be in an environment that would suit their need to be in a state of timeless consciousness. They would make an effort to do this in order to connect with themselves and their ancestors which were thought to be found in these lights.

3 stanza/4 lines each

Belief in spiritual realm- are the gods capricious (unpredictable)?
Close ties to geography
Prescientific worldview
Concern with survival
Propitiation: incantations, shamans, liturgy
Concern about death
Moral systems: things become taboo, social mores are established, totems created
Theology
Scripture
Prophecy
Sacrifice
Designated place of worship

Oh great and wise ancestors and gods
I call upon thee for aid
How can it be that the little people that run amongst me
Will soon grow as tall as trees and must take on the world

The future of our civilization lies
not in the lives of the present
but of those in the past and the future

For we, the shamans, must pray to the ancestors
who have ascended to the gods
And the grown men and women of the future
must take care of those on their path to the same destination as well

So when the time comes for me to fall
I pray, I pray, and I pray
Everyday as I stay dedicated, solitary, and stationary within this dolmen
That so it can be that when I am laid to rest in these stone confines
I may rise to the heavens and join my ancestors
And the children may rise and continue the cycle of life

Religion's Influence

This blog post discusses how most people believe that Jesus was both God and a man, but that we still imagine him with an "ever-present halo above his head." This means that he was free from mundane troubles such as diarrhea, as mentioned in the blog. Moore believes that Jesus had all of the troubles that humans face during their lifetimes but that those were forgotten over time in order to support his high position as God. However, it was because of these issues that Jesus was able to gain so many followers. He was able to connect with them through mutual understanding of the dirty situations they had to go through as human beings.
(Moore, My Take: Jesus was a dirty, dirty God)