World Religion: A Comparative Analysis of Hinduism and Christianity

This essay, written by a student, offers a comparative analysis of Hinduism and Christianity, drawing upon personal experiences and research. The author, raised in a Christian family, visited a Hindu temple to explore its rituals, ideologies, and beliefs, contrasting them with those of Christianity. The essay details the 'aarti' ritual, the significance of deities like Mahadeva, Kali, and the Trimurti, and compares these concepts with Christian beliefs. It includes conversations with a yogi and observations of different Hindu communities, including Shaivists and Rastafarians, highlighting their perspectives on nature, salvation, and the importance of meditation. The essay further examines the Hindu concepts of reincarnation, karma, and nirvana, contrasting them with Christian beliefs about heaven, hell, and original sin. The student reflects on the spiritual journey, emphasizing the quest for eternal truth and the alignment of consciousness with divine energy, concluding with a summary of the core beliefs and practices observed during the temple visits.

Running head: WORLD RELIGION
World Religion
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1WORLD RELIGION
The key purpose of this essay is to highlight my experiences of my spiritual visit in a
Hindu temple a few blocks down. India is the birthplace of one of the oldest religions of
earth, Hinduism and being raised in a Christian family in Florida, I have gone through many
Christian rituals and as my parents were true believers of eternal power, somehow love and
respect for Holy Father has been deep-rooted in me for years. Almost a year back, I visited a
Hindu temple in order to compare and contrast the rituals and the ideologies of both the
religions, as I felt that all I know is about my own religion, but in order to attain the unknown
and to be able to attain nirvana I would definitely require knowledge of the other religions
and their beliefs and point of views. For quite a long time the rich Hinduism intrigued me as I
got to learn something about Hinduism from some of my acquaintances from my university.
The thirst for knowledge got increased in a rapid manner and I finally ended up visiting one
of the most beautiful Temples near my neighbourhood. This essay will explain the basic
aspects of Hinduism and along with that a brief comparison of Hinduism and Christianity
shall be present in this essay.
When I first visited the temple, I was amazed to see where people doing a ritual
named ‘aarti’, to complete that particular ritual they need to collect some specific items and
devote them to God. After that they light candles and keep those items in a pot made of dried
paper and float the pot in water body. This ritual is performed on a daily basis by hundreds of
visitors and local people. They perform this in order to appease the Gods. I learnt that there is
a particular place in Hardwar (India) where this ritual is performed daily by hundreds of
people, is named as Har-kiPauri( Feet of the Lord) by Lord Mahadeva is meant here. In
Hinduism there is a special place for Mahadeva and Kali. They are believed to be a couple,
where Mahadeva is calm and his wife Kali or Mahakali is the goddess of destruction. When
Mahadeva in enraged he can become the cause of destruction too, and then he will become
Bhairava and destroy all the evil. Mahadeva or Shiva is the God who is considered to be the

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first yogi. In Christianity the three most important elements are Father, Son and the Soul
(Trinity) and in Hinduism, there is Trimurti (the creator or Brahma, the preserver or Vishnu
and the destroyer or Shiva) (Purzycki et al. 2016).On the other hand, it is believed that as in
Hinduism there are Shiva or Mahadeva and Parvati or Kali as a couple, in the Abrahamic
religions there are Adam and Eve, the first humans. But this theory is not that satisfactory for
the most of the believers of both the religions as there are many conflicting theories behind it.
In the temple I happened to have a long conversation with a yogi, who was nearly in
his late 60s. He enlightened me with a few Indian values and histories and I strongly believe
that that particular conversation made me achieve whatever I possess spiritually or the
thought process of mine that I acquired during that visit. Yogi Abhedananda took us to her
place where we saw that they have made a commune of about 20 monks and nuns (yogi and
yogini). I was surprised to see that almost every individual of that commune have strong
academic background and all of them were established in their regular life, but to attain
salvation they left that world and came out searching the eternal truth. In the path of
searching these people eventually got together and built this commune with love and
compassion. They believe that our nature is our mother. She nourishes us all and along with
that she can destroy all. They believe in Mahakali, who is the epitome of power, potency,
rage and compassion (Axt, Ebersole, andNosek 2014). In other words they are called
‘Shaktas’ (followers of Kali), I was kind of amused to see their point of view, for me this was
a whole new thing. The old man continued to say that Mahakaili is considered to be the first
of the Gods and Goddesses according to their belief. She is the nature, she is the mother of
all, and she is the creator along with the destroyer (Shin 2016). The deity of Kali is like a
woman whose eyes are red due to intoxication and fierceness is seen at her glance, she in her
four hands holds a skull filled with blood, in another hand he holds a sword and in another
she holds the head of a demon whom he slaughtered and in another hand there is the symbol

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of blessing in Indian culture. They believe that Kali is the most powerful and the nature is
matriarchal, according to this commune the social status of the women are much higher and
they are respected as symbol of fertility, nourishment and destructive force and motherly
kindness. I got to know that there are various characters of Adi Kali (old goddess), at times
she is Durga, who acquired power from all the gods and goddesses and killed a demon named
Mahisasura and saved the world (Axt, Ebersole, andNosek 2014). In another myth she is
Parvati, Shiva/ Mahadeva’s wife. I learned according to Hinduism Mahakali and Mahadeva
are married and the creator of the world. I was deeply moved by their stories, but this was not
all I got there.
Later I visited another famous Shiva temple that day and I met some Shaivists
(followers of Mahadeva), these people told me quite similar story, but they believe that Shiva
is the creator. In both the beliefs the main characters are the same, thus I perceived that in
Hinduism Shiva and Kali are one of the most important and interesting characters(Purzycki et
al. 2016). I realized that Hinduism is not only restricted in puja (appeasing the gods by
offering fire, food in front of their deities), but the truth is deep-rooted in the nature. One has
to attain it by conquering desire of the five senses. Individuals have to be free from any kind
of desire and then only his or her soul can be free (Shin 2016). Unlike Christianity, Hinduism
does not believe that after death people go to heaven or hell. According to Hinduism, after
death, the soul or consciousness becomes an element that is neither male nor female, and it
will reincarnate until the soul attains nirvana or the eternal truth. The consciousness is a very
important factor in Hinduism. According to Hinduism the soul has no gender; it is a form of
energy that is immortal (Aktor 2015). Soul can change the body and remain constant until
and unless it finds salvation. The soul might attain salvation in first or second birth as in any
form, be it a male or a female human, or it can take birth in forms of animals too. The key is
to attain salvation, and karma plays an important role in this context. The more sin an

4WORLD RELIGION
individual commits the more distant the soul becomes from salvation and the better an
individual’s activity is the more the soul will get closer to achieve nirvana (Axt, Ebersole,
andNosek 2014).
That day was an eventful day for me because when we were returning from the Shiva
temple, we found a commune of hippies among them some were followers of Hinduism,
some were Islam and some were Rastafarians. These Rastafarians are not Indian by birth,
they in search of nirvana ended up there. In their commune I learned to love the nature, to be
content with minimum requirements and to search for the eternal truth by meditation, by
spreading love, compassion and kindness to the world. This is another subpart of Hinduism
that I encountered near my neighbourhood. I was moved by the progressive point of view of
these people. These people have a strong faith on Shiva, whom they see as symbol of nature.
For them Shiva is the oldest yogi who stays closer to nature and using holy flower he attained
the truth by the path of meditation (Shin 2016). There are some plants which are considered
to be holy according to Hinduism and there are 3 major plants which are used in order to
appease Mahadeva (Axt, Ebersole, andNosek 2014). The members of this particular
commune do not believe in the traditional way of appeasing the Gods and Goddesses, rather
they believe that as God is omnipresent and omnipotent, whatever they will do, if they do that
with love and passion, they will attain spiritual peace while doing that. Knowing the in
unknown is the key motivator in Hinduism and when the soul learns the eternal truth, it
becomes free (Agrawal 2016).
The theory of getting salvation completely differs from what we believe in
Christianity. According to Christian beliefs, men acquired the original sin due to Adam and
Eve, and they have to be loyal towards the Holy Father and take the path directed by him in
the holy Bible (Shin 2016). After death, if he has earned enough piety he would get into
heaven; else the soul will have to face pain in hell. According to Hinduism, after death the

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soul does not become free, it waits till it gets birth again(Aktor 2015). The chain of
reincarnation becomes continuous until the soul attains the eternal truth(Purzycki et al. 2016).
This is something that is very interesting for me as I was raised by an orthodox Christian
family; these experiences were pleasantly surprising to me. Throughout the spiritual visit
salvation and nirvana, these two terms were always there and from every sub-part of the
Hinduism stresses on these two terms. Salvation is the key motive of the soul and in any
order the soul has to acquire it in order to reach nirvana (Aktor 2015). When the soul attains
nirvana it ceases to exist. The energy gets attached with the divine energy and it would not
have to bear the pain of rebirth. In Hinduism rebirth is a curse, just like in Christianity men
are born with the original sin (Agrawal 2016). But in Christianity death ends all, and on the
other hand in Hinduism reincarnation becomes a continuous process. I have learnt many
things during my spiritual visit to the Hindu temples and finally I thought that I should visit
there more often and see if I could try some luck in there. I found a guru there in 3 blocks
down, and started performing rituals with the Shakta commune. There we saw worshipping
Mahakali and they offered alcohol to the deity, meat and red flowers in order to appease the
mother of all. I learnt about ‘Gita’ and some books on the ‘holy Puranas’, from the Guru I
learnt that Hinduism advocates peace and believes whenever evil tries to capture the world,
divine power shall rescue the world and finish the evil powers, just like the story of
Mahadeva and Mahakali. Whatever I learnt there in short if I try to explain, I would have to
say that attaining the eternal truth would conjure up the notion of some spiritual
accomplishment, the ego would like to keep it in that way, but it is the natural state of an
individual that feels oneness with the divine energy (Aktor 2015). According to Hinduism, to
attain the eternal truth or to know the unknown, we need to keep our senses open and we
need to align the thought process of mind along with the soul or the consciousness. Then the

6WORLD RELIGION
main challenge would be to align the consciousness with the divine energy that can be
perceived only by meditation or by any sort of spiritual experience (Agrawal 2016).
It can be said that the visit for spiritual quest was successful for me and a whole new
chapter opened in front of my eyes. I believe that one should not get stuck with the traditional
way he or she was taught to think. We should open our senses and accept everything the way
it comes to us, otherwise we will be missing out the factors that might become beneficial in
future (Purzycki et al. 2016). Had I been encompassed with the orthodox Christian beliefs
only, I would have never been so comfortable with talking about salvation or the purification
of the soul by the effort of man,. All I knew before this trip was that we are the ward of Holy
Father and he will take care of us, but now, after learning a bit of Hinduism, I strongly
believe that man can write their own destiny with hard work, appropriate planning, increased
consciousness and will power.
Thus to conclude, it can be said that my spiritual visit was majorly successful and a
whole new world of spirituality opened in front of me and I think that I will continue to
practice some of the rituals that I have learnt from the of the commune of the Shaktas and the
commune. I will never forget the advises of the yogi I came across there. These experiences
already shaped me as the individual I am today and I am planning to have a longer stay in
India to lengthen my quest to attain the unknown. To know the unknown and attain the
unattainable is the primary quest of mankind if we refer to the original sin committed by
Adam and Eve. This is one of the most primitive desire of humankind and I believe Hinduism
rightly address that in order to let individuals find salvation in their own way. I strongly
believe that there are many differences among the theories of Christianity and Hinduism, but
the striking similarities are major and have to be considered. In both the religions stress on
maintaining peace is seen, along with that in Christianity it is believed God is one and only.
On the other hand according to Hinduism, God might have many forms, but there is one

7WORLD RELIGION
divine energy that governs the world. Both the religions speak about culture, awareness as a
human being, being compassionate towards everything and to keep a free mind with will to
adapt things be it spiritual or physiological. The main problem in today’s world is that
individuals are becoming one tracked and to attain nirvana we should keep our minds free.
We need to accept everything as a form of love from the divine power to align ourselves with
the divine energy. Only by aligning our consciousness with the nature we can get the desired
spiritual experience that we are thirsty for.

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