HINDUISM AND OTHER RELIGIONS

B. Hinduism and Other Religions

Do Hindus Have Prophets and Messiahs?

Hinduism does not look to prophets or messiahs who have a special relationship with God that other people cannot have and whom we must use as intermediaries, which is the Christian and Islamic view. It looks to great gurus or spiritual guides who set forth paths to Self-realization which must be adapted by each individual in his or her own way.

From the Hindu view, which has seen the coming and going of many religious systems, a variety of great teachers and Divine incarnations comes into being periodically to guide human beings relative to changing circumstances. There is no beginning or end to such great teachers. We should take their message, the teaching, and put it into practice, and not merely revere them outwardly.

Hindu history records hundreds of such sages from ancient to modern times and says that we should honor what is great in all of them and need not restrict ourselves to one only, as if knowledge of God, which is infinite, was the property of one person. More important than any prophet, savior or guru is to contact the Truth within our own nature. An external guide, however necessary, is only an aid to Self-knowledge. We must discover the Divine presence within ourselves. Otherwise our religious practice is not yet mature.

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