Concept in Definition ABC

This religious doctrine is followed by more than 1 billion people around the world. Hinduism is the oldest religion, appearing 4000 years ago in present-day India. It is not simply a religion, as it also incorporates a world view, traditions and one tradition.

General principles

Its followers consider it to be an eternal religion, since it lacks a beginning and an end. Unlike other beliefs, Hinduism does not have a founder or a prophet. Likewise, it does not present a specific dogma or a clerical organization.

Hindus believe in a plurality of gods, but above them there is a unique divinity. In other words, the different gods are the expression of a supreme divinity.

According to its faithful, the material and visible world is actually a mere illusion. Behind that apparent world called maya, there is a real world known as Brahman or Atman.

In religious practice, an attempt is made to eliminate this illusion. In this sense, it seeks to achieve peace interior by rejecting the apparent cycles of life and death found in Maya. This implies that the classic separation between the individual and the universe is a

belief false, since the individual soul is integrated into the authentic divinity of a higher order.

By breaking the duality between the self and the universe, the individual merges with the absolute. Thus, the human soul merges with Brahman. In Hinduism, the idea of ​​the universe comes to be like the body of Brahman.

The idea of ​​Atman and karma

The first texts of Hinduism are known as Vedas. In them, the idea of ​​atman expresses what a person really is, something similar to his spirit. The human being can come to know his atman and in doing so draws closer to Brahman.

The atman has a dimension immortal, since if the universe or Brahman is eternal, necessarily the atman or human spirit is equally eternal and, consequently, immortal.

The belief in a connection between the individual and the spirit of the universe makes Hindus give all living beings a spiritual dimension. As a consequence, Hindus are deeply respectful of nature and for this reason reason they are mostly vegetarian.

In Hinduism human life is actually a long process of different lives. This process is not arbitrary, but is governed by a force known as karma. The soul can be reborn in many different ways and it is the action of karma that determines one or the other. In this way, we are reborn in one being or another depending on our behavior and, therefore, the final result will depend on the action of karma.

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