Thread: Why do hippies and new-agers like Hinduism?

Because it's very cool and cosmopolitan to learn about and embrace the new and contrary cultures of foreign people, who after all are just like us.

Arabs are evil of course, so Hinduism or Buddhism were the next obvious choices.

I'm a hippie and I don't have any strong feelings about Hinduism, nor do I pretend to know anything about it. I do like the pretty pictures and cosmic adventures, though.

Its simple

Atheist hippies like buddhism and thiest hippies like hinduism. The great thing about being a hippie is you don't gotta be tied down by religious tradition of any kind, you can freely sample them all and take what works for you. In the case of hinduism, its only the spirituality and way of living that hippies love. Not the religious myths or dogma.

The spirituality found in any religion tends to be really different then the religious dogma. In hindu dogma youve got what, thousands of demi gods? It gets confusing. But the spirituality is simple - all beings including humans are the supreme being. Hippies love any belief that supports the divinity of all life forms.

The other reason why hippies love hinduism is sex and love. Hinduism is one of the only major religions on the planet that treats sexual expression as divine expression. No other major religion celebrates and elevates human relationships like the hindu religion. The only other religion that comes close to it is paganism.

Originally Posted by juroara

The great thing about being a hippie is you don't gotta be tied down by religious tradition of any kind, you can freely sample them all and take what works for you.

A bit like all other humans, then.

@juroara, But the caste system isn't "religious dogma", it's fundamental to Hindu Cosmology. So brushing it under the rug of that label doesn't really address my point that it's a savage religion. Is having a religion that endorses sex really worth glorifying the treatment of sentient beings in such a manner?

I like Buddhism, but I believe in God. I don't know a lot about Hinduism.

Out of curiosity, what do you like about Buddhism?

I think the sexuality of some flavors of Hinduism and the indifferent abuse of other human beings are not entirely unrelated. Free love seems great in concept as long as you ignore all the messy details.

I think westerners who embrace eastern religions are generally fairly ignorant about what they're embracing, it seems all foreign and exotic, and they don't see the ugly side. I remember reading the Dalai Lama once where he was teaching that there's nothing wrong with buying prostitutes, but that oral sex is an abomination. Apparently abortions and cervical cancer don't offend his sensibilities. (This was before there was a vaccine.) I see his whole power structure to have been a superstition based protection racket: support our idle, authoritarian lifestyle, and demons won't destroy your crops. I think Tibet has a right to be free from China, Tibetans aren't Chinese, but the Hollywood glamorization of what they had going on there previously is pretty ridiculous. I'm not suggesting that its worse in all regards than western religions, just that its not pretty either.

Depressed this week Philosopher? I typically do a lot of whining about this sort of thing, but I hadn't noticed it from you before.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

I think westerners who embrace eastern religions are generally fairly ignorant about what they're embracing, it seems all foreign and exotic, and they don't see the ugly side. I remember reading the Dalai Lama once where he was teaching that there's nothing wrong with buying prostitutes, but that oral sex is an abomination. Apparently abortions and cervical cancer don't offend his sensibilities. (This was before there was a vaccine.) I see his whole power structure to have been a superstition based protection racket: support our idle, authoritarian lifestyle, and demons won't destroy your crops. I think Tibet has a right to be free from China, Tibetans aren't Chinese, but the Hollywood glamorization of what they had going on there previously is pretty ridiculous. I'm not suggesting that its worse in all regards than western religions, just that its not pretty either.

One word: Orientalism.

Originally Posted by Xei

A bit like all other humans, then.

Fuckin epic bro

As for the OP, I feel you completely but ever heard of the Vedas?

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

I think the sexuality of some flavors of Hinduism and the indifferent abuse of other human beings are not entirely unrelated. Free love seems great in concept as long as you ignore all the messy details.

Very good point.

I think westerners who embrace eastern religions are generally fairly ignorant about what they're embracing, it seems all foreign and exotic, and they don't see the ugly side. I remember reading the Dalai Lama once where he was teaching that there's nothing wrong with buying prostitutes, but that oral sex is an abomination. Apparently abortions and cervical cancer don't offend his sensibilities. (This was before there was a vaccine.) I see his whole power structure to have been a superstition based protection racket: support our idle, authoritarian lifestyle, and demons won't destroy your crops.

The Shakyamuni is recorded as saying that his teachings would last for 500 years which would have been 1000 if he hadn't agreed to allow women to join the Sangha. The 500 years about lines up with when the most conservative Buddhist cannons were being written down and well predates the creation of the most extravagant Mahayana texts. Not to knock Nagarjuna. With Sarvastividians on his left and Yogacarins on his right, he introduced emptiness to make them both go away.

So anyway, the Tibetan Buddhists and others are living with crumbs from the original teachings.

Depressed this week Philosopher? I typically do a lot of whining about this sort of thing, but I hadn't noticed it from you before.

Weird. I whine about sloppy thinking a lot. As I see it, there are three origins of the kind of event which lead the uninstructed mind to suffering: Malice, Bad luck and stupidity. Malice is rooted in stupidity and bad luck is accentuated by it. A lot of suffering could be eliminated just be getting rid of stupidity. The Illuminati and Alien conspiracy theories are just a way of sidestepping the fact we and our sloppy thinking are babylon. We buy the products that make these people rich and we stand idly by while they recruit our children into the military to die to subsidize our oil economy. Clear thinking makes this difficult to sidestep. The kind of sloppy bullshit promulgated by Deepak Chopra and other newage leaders hides and contributes to it. They offer (in Taosaurs words) spiritual junk food when a wholesome meal is called for.

This just happens to be another case of sloppy thinking.

Originally Posted by tempusername

As for the OP, I feel you completely but ever heard of the Vedas?

No. I'm starting a thread about Hinduism and I've never heard of the Vedas -_-.

What about the Vedas concerns me with regards to the status of Hinduism as a substrate for an ethical framework? For most people, that is the primary point of religion. I guess other people just want a liscense for free "love".

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

As I see it, there are three origins of the kind of event which lead the uninstructed mind to suffering: Malice, Bad luck and stupidity. Malice is rooted in stupidity and bad luck is accentuated by it. A lot of suffering could be eliminated just be getting rid of stupidity. The Illuminati and Alien conspiracy theories are just a way of sidestepping the fact we and our sloppy thinking are babylon. We buy the products that make these people rich and we stand idly by while they recruit our children into the military to die to subsidize our oil economy. Clear thinking makes this difficult to sidestep. The kind of sloppy bullshit promulgated by Deepak Chopra and other newage leaders hides and contributes to it. They offer (in Taosaurs words) spiritual junk food when a wholesome meal is called for.

It seems that in economics, consumer confidence is sometimes treated as equivalent to economic health. Of course lack of confidence does cause economic trouble, but its not as if we can solve all or economic troubles by pursuing monetary policies that stimulate confidence. I think stupidity is like this also. It causes us suffering, but if we were somehow less stupid, without changing anything else, we would get ourselves into even more trouble. It has a context. It makes no sense to be annoyed at a cat for being stupid. I think that we also have far less freedom in this regard than is sometimes assumed. I also think that our philosophical views and practices make a lot less difference than is commonly assumed. These things do matter, they are a critically important part of the process. But if we could somehow force everyone to read our very favorite books and try to follow them, it would actually make things worse. Its not the right time and place, for that, we've fallen too far. When there is a demand for better books, people will create better books. Of course doing that involves work, I don't mean that we should just roll over and let the con artists dominate discourse. What I mean is a thought like "if people would just do or think X, things would be much better", is itself a kind of stupidity, it doesn't see the whole picture. I don't mean that as a criticism of anything you said, I'm just saying some of what I think that seems relevant to the topic of stupidity.

Malice is an interesting topic to me because I have a fair amount of it. I think to some extent the malice I feel isn't even mine personally, I'm just rooted in the psychological substrate of humanity. To some extent it seems to be a kind of damaged love. If you love your parents as a small child, and they relentlessly abuse you, then when you move the part of you that loves you feel pain. And malice seems to me to be a sort of extroverted pain, a desire to communicate what we feel by sharing it. And yet, we're not utterly captive to it either, we have some ability to interpret it differently, to respect other people's freedom, and to choose not to amplify it by passing it on.

When I was in my early 20's I regarded honesty as a symptom of intelligence, with dishonesty being almost synonymous with intentional stupidity. So I figured if I met someone who seemed to be relatively intelligent and capable of empathy, then they must be relatively honest. Experience seems to dissuade me of this assumption.

For anyone who's wondering....I keep threatening to quit posting, because I keep hoping to be able to move my family to where I am, in which case I won't have time. Now its looking like that won't be for at least another 3 to 6 months, and even then I don't see how it will work.

I'm up for a discussion in relation to Buddhism if you're interested, though I don't know much about it. I've read Cleary's translation of Secret of the Golden Flower, which is considered both Buddhist and Taoist. I'm familiar with Patanjali, which isn't Buddhist but has some similarities I think. I've read James Allen's books, which are sort of a western Buddhism. Other than that all of my Buddhism is filtered through various Theosophists, which admittedly is like using the same filter for tea and toilet water. Of course I have criticisms of all these things. I haven't pursued it more because what I have read doesn't seem to speak to my primary concerns, at least not in a way that I understand.

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

@juroara, But the caste system isn't "religious dogma", it's fundamental to Hindu Cosmology. So brushing it under the rug of that label doesn't really address my point that it's a savage religion. Is having a religion that endorses sex really worth glorifying the treatment of sentient beings in such a manner?

Thats what I call religious dogma. Religious dogma is anything the religion says youre supposed to do or be. The spirituality, which inspired the religion, is the only aspect of any religion worth keeping.

What's really wrong with picking and choosing? I hear that complaint a lot- 'oh this guy's just picking and choosing what he likes about his religion and ignoring the rest'. Fine, but what's so bad about that? I for one am a voracious picker and chooser. I can understand the problem if it's unprincipled. But principled picking and choosing seems ok to me. A religion may have 2 elements for example, x and y. I may find out that element x came about by a process very specific to the context that it was formed in, and that it has nothing to do with my situation. At the same time, element y came about by contextual processes that are more far-reaching in their applicability, such that it has relevance to my life now. As long as the two aren't tightly married (as is sometimes be the case with religious elements), I should be free to accept y and reject x.

Hinduism is prominent in New Age circles because the movement substantially owes its existence to an influx of Indian pseudo-gurus and proselytizing sects into the West in the mid to late 20th century. 'Foreign' religions often appeal to people who are apostates of their 'native' faith precisely because the new religion isn't associated with local injustices and personal trauma. The new faith is often also received from a more expert source than the often garbled absurdities passed from parent to child (and often enough, preacher to congregation) among the laity of any religion.

And of course, certain religions just work better for certain people. They resonate with your felt experience of being human in time/space and put you in the company of like-minded people.

The criticism that "Hinduism bad because castes" is empty. All ideologies that have actually organized a society for any length of time have their associated atrocities. Why? It's people. Religion is made out of people. The most naive and authoritarian iterations of any ideology are liable to be ugly.

Originally Posted by juroara

Thats what I call religious dogma. Religious dogma is anything the religion says youre supposed to do or be. The spirituality, which inspired the religion, is the only aspect of any religion worth keeping.

So if a religion says that I'm not supposed to kill people or that I'm supposed to have compassion for people suffering from misfortune, then that's religious dogma?

Originally Posted by Taosaur

The criticism that "Hinduism bad because castes" is empty. All ideologies that have actually organized a society for any length of time have their associated atrocities. Why? It's people. Religion is made out of people. The most naive and authoritarian iterations of any ideology are liable to be ugly.

I don't feel that it's empty at all. Were it some fringe element then I would agree. It is however a core aspect of the religion which is responsible for ongoing cruelty. It's hardly a product of only the "most naive and authoritarian iterations" of Hinduism. I am not aware that it is possible to be a Hindu without believing that people born to dig through shit deserve to dig through shit.

I'm a hippie... and the only thing I know about hinduism, is a lot of their gods are on my lsd blotters

Nah, I know a little more than that. But I'm not into it or anything. I'm more of a shamanism guy myself.

Buy I do know what you mean. I think it's just young hippies trying to learn more about other cultures/religions. I was definitely there once.

I would say because of the attraction of raja yoga.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

It seems that in economics, consumer confidence is sometimes treated as equivalent to economic health. Of course lack of confidence does cause economic trouble, but its not as if we can solve all or economic troubles by pursuing monetary policies that stimulate confidence. I think stupidity is like this also. It causes us suffering, but if we were somehow less stupid, without changing anything else, we would get ourselves into even more trouble.

How would we become less stupid without changing anything else? Changing our ability to think clearly about reality would change everything else. It's not thinking clearly that gets one in trouble. If one thinks clearly, then ones thoughts do a sufficiently adequate job of moving in parallel with reality to allow one to see trouble coming.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

I also think that our philosophical views and practices make a lot less difference than is commonly assumed. These things do matter, they are a critically important part of the process. But if we could somehow force everyone to read our very favorite books and try to follow them, it would actually make things worse. Its not the right time and place, for that, we've fallen too far. When there is a demand for better books, people will create better books. Of course doing that involves work, I don't mean that we should just roll over and let the con artists dominate discourse. What I mean is a thought like "if people would just do or think X, things would be much better", is itself a kind of stupidity, it doesn't see the whole picture. I don't mean that as a criticism of anything you said, I'm just saying some of what I think that seems relevant to the topic of stupidity.

I just want people to think clearly. When asked a clear question, I want people to response with a clear answer or "I don't know." I want people to use words for the meaning they convey rather than the feelings they stimulate. This is the basis of enlightenment.

The current generation of "spiritual leaders" would not survive in that environment any better than totalitarian governments.

So I'm not interested in getting anybody to read my favorite book or any nonsense like that. I am interested in people thinking about this world and the suffering in it in a clear and consistant manner to better understand its origins.

Originally Posted by DrunkenArse

I just want people to think clearly. When asked a clear question, I want people to response with a clear answer or "I don't know." I want people to use words for the meaning they convey rather than the feelings they stimulate. This is the basis of enlightenment.

"Be impeccable with your word," right?

So I'm not interested in getting anybody to read my favorite book or any nonsense like that. I am interested in people thinking about this world and the suffering in it in a clear and consistant manner to better understand its origins.

Unfortunately it's undeniable how much we've "understood" on the basis of lies. In so many cases it would appear they were even a necessary evil.

I think they just like Indian things and associate everything Indian with Hinduism. That and the cosmic images.

Originally Posted by DrunkenArse

So if a religion says that I'm not supposed to kill people or that I'm supposed to have compassion for people suffering from misfortune, then that's religious dogma?

If you feel a calling to follow something in a religion, then by all means go for it. Dont let anything I say stop you.

That said, loads of people don't feel compassion when people suffer by misfortune when they brought on the misfortune themselves. I mean if you're driving 100mph and you crash and kill someone and you're arrested, well duh..Or what about a doctor who has to make a tough call and decide to put someone down while they are unconscious. Even if its ideals are true, religious dogma is absolute. Only spirituality leaves breathing room an encompases the complexity of life.

You should not kill someone is a very different statement then, never kill someone or burn in hell.

Originally Posted by DrunkenArse

I am not aware that it is possible to be a Hindu without believing that people born to dig through shit deserve to dig through shit.

Ghandi was a traditional Hindu and refused to support the untouchables and thought that it was as it should be. He was much more impassioned about political independence from Britain.

@Juroara, I fail to see the relavence of your point about people bringing suffering on themselves. Maybe you could clarify?

Originally Posted by DrunkenArse

Ghandi was a traditional Hindu and refused to support the untouchables and thought that it was as it should be. He was much more impassioned about political independence from Britain.

@Juroara, I fail to see the relavence of your point about people bringing suffering on themselves. Maybe you could clarify?

youre the one that brought suffering into the conversation, you tell me!

If you can't understand that difference between religion and spirituality, I can't help you there