I appreciate your explanation, PreethamJD. The idea that one can be agnostic and atheist and still be a practicing Hindu doesn't strike me as strange because I've long understood that the same can apply to Buddhists. I also did not think that Hinduism is really comparable to the Abrahamic faiths.
If Hinduism is really a kind of spiritual practice (or perhaps I should say, several kinds of spiritual practice) as opposed to an authoritative body of dogma that must be believed, would "yoga" serve as a good catch-all word to denote this? [Note: By yoga, I don't mean only the forms of yoga that have become popular in Western fitness clubs but -- more broadly -- the variety of yogic disciplines I vaguely remember reading about in Iyengar's Light on Yoga, including devotional -- Bhakti? -- yoga.] The goal, after all, is to yoke one's essential nature with Brahman, the unchanging unity-in-diversity, no?
If I've utterly misrepresented Hinduism, please correct me. We have at least one other Hindu at AF, and I'd be interested in her take, too.
If Hinduism is really a kind of spiritual practice (or perhaps I should say, several kinds of spiritual practice) as opposed to an authoritative body of dogma that must be believed, would "yoga" serve as a good catch-all word to denote this? [Note: By yoga, I don't mean only the forms of yoga that have become popular in Western fitness clubs but -- more broadly -- the variety of yogic disciplines I vaguely remember reading about in Iyengar's Light on Yoga, including devotional -- Bhakti? -- yoga.] The goal, after all, is to yoke one's essential nature with Brahman, the unchanging unity-in-diversity, no?
If I've utterly misrepresented Hinduism, please correct me. We have at least one other Hindu at AF, and I'd be interested in her take, too.
