One thing that led me to Hinduism was when I took some time to think about the ‘big questions.’ Who am I? Why am I here? Why is there suffering? Why is there happiness? What is the universe? Questions such as those. In the end, I found that the general worldview of the [Principal] Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita made sense of life, the world, and everything. Moreover, those scriptures gave everything a higher significance.
Regarding values, I found that Hinduism’s recognition of prosperity and emotional/sensual fulfillment as legitimate goals of the human being resonated with me. I also liked the tenets of universal dharma such as non-injury, truth, cleanliness, compassion, and liberality.
A cornerstone question answered in my religion is, ‘Who am I?’ My favorite answer is that I am not the body, not the mind, not the intellect, not the ego, rather, I am the Spirit—being, consciousness, and bliss absolute—who is ever free and pure. A cornerstone value in my religion is non-attachment. The less attached that I am to natural things, be they material or mental, the closer I am to Self-realization.
If their philosophy or religion is a Western one, they would probably have to keep in mind that we don’t see many things the same way. When it comes to time, for example, Westerners tend to think it is linear whereas Hindus tend to think it is cyclical. I’ve concluded that how we see time greatly influences many things: whether our relationship to the divine is more individual or collective, the nature of moral consequences, the hereafter, and our priorities.
