OM By The Beach - Fascinating People in the Hotseat

Excerpts from Smith, Huston. The World's Religions, Revised and Updated (S.85-93). HarperOne. Kindle-Version. 

Covered here in 9:52 minutes:

In this episode, we learn about the Hindu worldview, and how it sees all other religions in her context.

"To the question, “What kind of world do we have?” Hinduism answers:  

• A multiple world that includes innumerable galaxies horizontally, innumerable tiers vertically, and innumerable cycles temporally. 
• A moral world in which the law of karma is never suspended.  
• A middling world that will never replace paradise as the spirit’s destination.  
• A world that is maya, deceptively tricky in passing off its multiplicity, materiality, and dualities as ultimate when they are actually provisional. 
• A training ground on which people can develop their highest capacities. 
• A world that is lila, the play of the Divine in its Cosmic Dance—untiring, unending, resistless, yet ultimately beneficent, with a grace born of infinite vitality."

Brought to you by OM By The Beach (https://ombythebeach.com), Josef Schinwald, MDiv

Excerpts from the book by Smith, Huston. The World’s Religions, Revised and Updated (PP.82-83). HarperOne. Kindle-Version.

Covered here in 9:52 minutes:

In this episode, notions of brahman, jiva (individual soul), karma, and the journey of a being from the very beginning to moksha (liberation) will be the topics. Below is an excerpt of one of many.

“Individual souls, or jivas, enter the world mysteriously; by God’s power we may be sure, but how or for what reason we are unable fully to explain. Like bubbles that form on the bottom of a boiling teakettle, they make their way through the water (universe) until they break free into the limitless atmosphere of illumination (liberation). They begin as the souls of the simplest forms of life, but they do not vanish with the death of their original bodies. In the Hindu view spirit no more depends on the body it inhabits than body depends on the clothes it wears or the house it lives in. When we outgrow a suit or find our house too cramped, we exchange these for roomier ones that offer our bodies freer play.”

Souls do the same.
Worn-out garments
Are shed by the body:
Worn-out bodies
Are shed by the dweller.
(Bhagavad-Gita, II:22)

Brought to you by OM By The Beach (https://ombythebeach.com), Josef Schinwald, MDiv

Smith, Huston. The World’s Religions, Revised and Updated (PP.60-70). HarperOne. Kindle-Version.

Covered here in 10:20 minutes:

In this episode, we continue with the ways of to the goal, with Raja Yoga. Here is a short excerpt of several covered.

“The purpose of raja yoga is to demonstrate the validity of this fourfold estimate of the human self by leading the inquirer to direct personal experience of “the beyond that is within.” Its method is willed introversion, one of the classic implements of creative genius in any line of endeavor, here carried to its logical term. Its intent is to drive the psychic energy of the self to its deepest part to activate the lost continent of the true self.”

Brought to you by OM By The Beach (https://ombythebeach.com), Josef Schinwald, MDiv

Smith, Huston. The World’s Religions, Revised and Updated (PP.50-70). HarperOne. Kindle-Version.

Covered here in 8:31 minutes:

In this episode, the subject matter is Bhakti and Karma Yoga. Here is a short excerpt of several covered.

“The ideal form for most people will be one of God’s incarnations, for God can be loved most readily in human form because our hearts are already attuned to loving people. Many Hindus acknowledge Christ as a God-man, while believing that there have been others, such as Rama, Krishna, and the Buddha. Whenever the stability of the world is seriously threatened, God descends to redress the imbalance.”

When goodness grows weak,
When evil increases,
I make myself a body.
In every age I come back
To deliver the holy,
To destroy the sin of the sinner,
To establish the righteous.
(Bhagavad-Gita, IV:7–8)

Brought to you by OM By The Beach (https://ombythebeach.com), Josef Schinwald, MDiv

Excerpts from the book by Smith, Huston. The World's Religions, Revised and Updated (PP. 42-47). HarperOne. Kindle-Version. 

Covered here in 06:18 minutes:

The root of the word Yoga. The quest that has inspired India for ages. The different personality types and the Yogas. The first steps of Yoga. Jnana Yoga, the first way. The meaning of persona. The task of the yogi. Metaphors of the self in relation to the Self from the Upanishads. 

Brought to you by OM By The Beach, Josef Schinwald, MDiv

Excerpts from the book by Smith, Huston. The World's Religions, Revised and Updated (PP. 27-41). HarperOne. Kindle-Version. 

Covered here in 9 minutes:

Hinduism's affirmation is you can have what you want. Pleasure, worldly success, ... are not the things the people really want, however. There is the path of desire and the path of renunciation. The people who see nothing to renounce for are the world's real pessimists. There is the answer that is the answer to the birth of Hinduism. What we really want lies at a deeper level, moksha. Infinite being, infinite awareness, infinite bliss are within our reach, in fact, we possess them already, says Hindusim. Atman and Brahman.

Brought to you by OM By The Beach, Josef Schinwald, MDiv

Excerpts from the book by Smith, Huston. The World's Religions, Revised and Updated (PP. 252-254). HarperOne. Kindle-Version. 

Covered here in 7  minutes:

The Taoists rejected all forms of self-assertiveness and competition. The ax falls first on the tallest tree.  Selfless as melting ice is one of their descriptive figures. Chuang Tzu's description of his grand funeral. The notion of the relativity of all values and as its correlative, the identity of all opposites. Chuang Tzu on death. Passages in the Tao Te Ching that read almost like the sermon on the mount. Confucius represents the classical, Lao Tzu the romantic. Confucius roams within society, Lao Tzu wonders beyond. 

Brought to you by OM By The Beach, Josef Schinwald, MDiv

Excerpts from the book by Smith, Huston. The World's Religions, Revised and Updated (PP. 252-254). HarperOne. Kindle-Version. 

Covered here in 4  minutes:

Perfecting a life of wu wei. Meanings of wu wei, pure effectiveness, and creative quietude. The way to do is the way to be. The secret lies in seeking out the empty spaces in life and in nature. Chuang Tzu and his story of a cook cutting up an ox are mentioned here. The natural phenomenon that the Taoists saw close to wu wei was water. Water, the way it finds clarity when let alone and still, and the way it moves through obstacles effortlessly.

Brought to you by OM By The Beach, Josef Schinwald, MDiv

Excerpts from the book by Smith, Huston. The World's Religions, Revised and Updated (PP. 234-242). HarperOne. Kindle-Version. 

Covered here in 05:40  minutes:

The three schools of Taoism, efficient power (philosophical), augmented power (hygiene, and Yoga), and vicarious power (religious). Furthermore, the concepts of wu wei (pure effectiveness)  and ch'i (vital energy), and magic are explained.   Finally, there is a section on the mingling of those three schools where all have the same concern, to maximize the animating te (power). We can summarize, to be something, to know something, and to be capable of something is to rise above the superficial. 

Brought to you by OM By The Beach, Josef Schinwald, MDiv

Excerpts from the book by Smith, Huston. The World's Religions, Revised and Updated (P. 232). HarperOne. Kindle-Version. 

Covered here in short 3 minutes:

Tao can mean the way of ultimate reality, the way of the universe, and the way of human life. It cannot be named, there are no words for it, except Tao (a nonsense word), it refers to the womb of creation from which everything comes and returns, and finally, it is the way of how life should be, not defined be doing rather by being.

Brought to you by OM By The Beach, Josef Schinwald, MDiv