HowToDoThings.com Recent Hinduism Articles

How To Prepare Yourself to Succeed in Meditation

CVRAJAN — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:32:06 -0800

How To Celebrate Annabhishekam in Siva Temples in India

muthusamy — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 10:52:46 -0800

How To Celebrate the Hindu Festival Skanda Shashti (Lord Subramanya)

muthusamy — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:52:05 -0800

How To Celebrate Navaratri with Golu

muthusamy — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:11:22 -0700

How To Understand Azhwars and Vaishanvism

muthusamy — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:02:08 -0700

How To Recite Hanuman Chalisa

muthusamy — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:06:52 -0700

How To Perform Sundara Kandam Parayanam

muthusamy — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:59:02 -0700

How To Conduct Yourself Inside a Hindu Temple

CVRAJAN — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:49:12 -0700

Any Hindu Temple is a holy place designated for public worship of God, where the form of God has been consecrated as per "Agama Shastra" (procedures and rites based on specific scripture dealing with temple construction and worship). Traditionally, some temples (having a long historic background) may draw quite large number of devotees by virtue of certain reasons associated with the sacredness of the place, specific benevolences attributed to the presiding deity, the sanctification done by a great sage who stayed at the premises and practiced severe austerities and so on.

Many ancient temples are also rich treasure houses of traditional Indian art, sculpture and architecture; they serve as museums, too, for the tourists to come, view and appreciate the magnificent sculptural and architectural capabilities of the artisans of yore. There are also temples of recent origin available for easy accessibility to devotees near most of the residential localities.

How To Remove Common Misconceptions About Hinduism

CVRAJAN — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:19:22 -0700

Hinduism is a vast religion with multiple facets. It is one of the oldest religions in the world. For the less informed, Hinduism may look too confusing, too complicated to understand, and too contradictory in its precepts and practices. Even many Hindus do not know the exalted philosophies of the religion. Naturally, there are many misconceptions commonly prevalent about Hinduism, some propagated by vested interests, some by ill-informed westerners and some by self-doubting Hindus. Here is an attempt to clear up some of those misconceptions.

How To Convert to Hinduism

CVRAJAN — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:23:18 -0700

No single, universally acceptable procedure ever exists for getting converted to Hinduism – this is the basic truth. Why? Hinduism, in absolute reality, is not a religion, but “sanatana Dharma” – the righteous way of living; it encompasses the entire creation; it is not a religion founded by any one messiah.

Hinduism is quite different from Christianity or Islam from the point of view of its vastness in the scope of practice and perception. The concept of one supreme God, who is amenable for worship in multitudes of names and forms, is one major aspect of religion that sets Hinduism apart from other religions. This has resulted in numerous sects and sub-sects in Hinduism. Further, Hinduism as practiced at the grass root level and as comprehended at the elevated spiritual and philosophical level has a vast difference in between.

How To Understand the Role of Gurus

CVRAJAN — Wed, 28 May 2008 12:52:21 -0700

The word "guru" in general means a teacher in Sanskrit. In the generic sense, any teacher, whether the one who teaches worldly knowledge or the one who teaches spiritual wisdom, is a guru. But normally, from the point of Hindu religion, a guru is one who teaches you spiritual knowledge, who initiates you into a spiritual path or who guides you along the path of a spiritual quest.

Great spiritual masters of Hinduism are of the firm opinion that the human birth is rare and the purpose of the human birth is to attain God or realize one’s atman, which are one and the same, viewed from two different perspectives.

This is the ultimate goal to be attained and it is varyingly termed as God realization, self-realization, attaining the knowledge of Brahman, attaining birthlessness/deathlessness (“Moksha” “Mukthi” “samadhi” “nirvana” “sakshatkar,” etc. in Sanskrit).

How To Choose Hindu Baby Names

CVRAJAN — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:10:05 -0700

In Hinduism, practically every aspect of human life is intrinsically connected to religion, whether explicitly known or unknown to the common man. Naming of a baby too falls into the category. Hinduism accepts God with numerous names and forms, though the underlying truth of the Ultimate Reality is one transcending name and form. Hinduism believes that the name of God is very holy and uttering God's name, consciously or unconsciously has its spiritual benefits.

How To Understand Waking, Dreaming and Deep Sleep States

premansu_chand — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 13:40:36 -0800

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad interprets and describes vividly waking, dreaming and deep sleep states experienced by the self/soul of a being. Every being has a self. This self is nothing but consciousness. Whatever is seen in the body--i.e. gross body, life-force and mind--is the manifestation of this self.

Self is eternally present. It always remains in a body, be it gross or subtle. When the gross body is destroyed at death, it remains in a subtle body. Subtle body is not material but imaginary. A single body is the imagination and manifestation of a single self whereas the world is the imagination of all selves. All these things can be understood by understanding waking, dreaming and deep sleep states as described below.

How To Start Learning about Hindu Gods and Goddesses

CVRAJAN — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:59:45 -0800

Hinduism is not just a religion. It is known as 'Sanatana Dharma' - a righteous way of life. Hinduism has multiple facets, multiple schools of philosophies and multiple sub-sects, but all ultimately lead to one highest truth. Hinduism is not a religion of multiple gods, as some non-Hindus wrongly believe. Hinduism actually accepts worshipping and adoring varying forms of the One God - called Brahman, Parabrahman or Paramatman. Hinduism recognizes the fact that different people have different tastes, temperaments and capacity of intake in the matter of religion. Hence it offers 'different strokes for different folks.'

How To Study the Bhagavad Gita

antrix — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 15:02:10 -0800

Bhagavad Gita is explained in Bhishma Parva (chapters 23-40) of the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. It is an epic poem in Sanskrit. 'Bhagavad Gita’ means "the song of the God". The word Bhagavad pertains to Bhagavan, the God (the Lord Krishna, an avatar of Lord Sri Vishnu) and Gita is the poem. The Bhagavad Gita refers to itself as an 'Upanishad', and is sometimes called Gitopanisad.

The Bhagavad Gita starts with the King Dhritarashtra, the blind king of Kauravas, asking his advisor, Sanjaya, to narrate him the details of the epic war between his sons, the Kauravas and their cousins, the Pandavas, at Kurukshetra arena.

How To Search for God

premansu_chand — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 09:54:15 -0700

The ancient Indian saints and sages were most advanced in their spiritual pursuit. They composed voluminous texts named 'Vedas' in order to describe their spiritual findings and realizations. The cream of Indian spiritualism is found in the Upanishads, which are the last volumes of Vedas. It is believed that Vedas were composed from 1500 BC onwards and Upanishads were composed from 700 BC onwards. Upanishads are not only for Hindus, but for the whole of mankind.

Out of eleven principal Upanishads, it is accepted that Isha Upanishad is the oldest of all. Let us see what this Upanishad describes in order to search for God.