Believe it or not, when I was staying at a Benedictine monastery, I was never told to read the Bible. No, only book I was recommended (by a monk who enjoyed listening to heavy metal) was the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu classic. It was fitting that a monk who enjoyed metal would recommend it to me since, as I often say, Hinduism is a “heavy metal” religion. It does not shy away from the diversity of human life nor the tough questions that arise from it. The proof of this is the Gita, which begins, as sacred texts do not often do, on a battlefield. The Prince Arjuna is reluctant to go to war where he will have to kill his enemies, some of whom are relatives or those dear to him. So what does he do? He speaks to the Lord Krishna, a manifestation of the Supreme Deity of Hinduism—that is, the ultimate reality, Brahman. It is a short read. I finished it in about a week at a very leisurely pace, and as I read it, I was enchanted by some of the lessons that were imparted, particularly those that pertain to karma (viz., action).

One of the things the Gita teaches is to act without attachment to the consequence. That is, I should do something not wedded to the idea that it will yield a desirable result but because it is the right thing to do. That’s how I would put it in laymen’s terms, anyway, to the best of my ability. On the face of it, this sounds like a swell idea since it is the antithesis to consequentialist ethics, in which the ends are said to justify the means. For this reason, I have long been an admirer of virtue ethics: virtue is not about dos an don’ts, but it is about cultivating certain attitudes that dispose one to act well not for any particular reason other than that it is the right, virtuous thing to do. The Gita thus suggests a way in which Arjuna could carry out his duty (one of the many translations of dharma) without attachment to the end of the action itself.

This realisation may be useful as a spiritual practice for doing good deeds despite difficult circumstances, but it is not without its darker side. Slavoj Zizek noted, for instance, how the Gita was a favourite of Heinrich Himmler, who was one of the Nazis most responsible for the killing of Jews in the concentration camps. Believe it or not, I’ve heard that Himmler was actually quite disturbed by all of this, as one should be. Yet, despite this queasy feeling, he developed ways that soldiers would take on portions of the work involved in the killing without carrying out the entire operation themselves. In this way, they, too, could be detached from the consequences of the actions, and the world was horrified to see the result. Do I believe this reflects poorly on Hinduism? Not at all. It is simply one way in which a spiritual teaching has been abused, although it does suggest that is a greater ethic to which one may be held than this. Moreover, I suspect that there is a Western lens through which Zizek interpreted the teaching that would not apply in the Hindu worldview. I expect the Hindu would take it even further, and suggest that if one were to attain liberation (moksha) through this teaching, one should not be acting for a particular outcome as Himmler did. As Krishna said to Arjuna,

As the ignorant perform their duties with attachment to results, the learned may similarly act, but without attachment, for the sake of leading people on the right path.

—Bhagavad Gita, III, verse 25.

Here, Krishna, too, is alluding to a standard of morality other than the teaching to which Zizek objected, and it is certainly not the standard of the Nazis. Thus, we see here that the liberation found in this teaching is not the freedom to do whatever one wants but a freedom from want itself; that is, the “want” for a particular outcome.

But this is just one small aspect of Hinduism. As a final note, allow me to share one of the other mind-boggling parts of the Gita: that of Krishna’s revelation of his cosmic form—a form that would make Biblical angels blush:

Arjuna saw in that universal form unlimited mouths, unlimited eyes, unlimited wonderful visions. The form was decorated with many celestial ornaments and bore many divine upraised weapons. He wore celestial garlands and garments, and many divine scents were smeared over His body. All was wondrous, brilliant, unlimited, all-expanding.
If hundreds of thousands of suns were to rise at once into the sky, their radiance might resemble the effulgence of the Supreme Person in that universal form.
At that time Arjuna could see in the universal form of the Lord the unlimited expansions of the universe situated in one place although divided into many, many thousands.
Then, bewildered and astonished, his hair standing on end, Arjuna bowed his head to offer obeisances and with folded hands began to pray to the Supreme Lord.
Arjuna said: My dear Lord Kṛṣṇa, I see assembled in Your body all the demigods and various other living entities. I see Brahmā sitting on the lotus flower, as well as Lord Śiva and all the sages and divine serpents.
O Lord of the universe, O universal form, I see in Your body many, many arms, bellies, mouths and eyes, expanded everywhere, without limit. I see in You no end, no middle and no beginning.

—Bhagavad Gita, XI, verses 10–16.

When I first learned about Hinduism, the professor asked our class: “Is Hinduism polytheistic or monotheistic?” Most people’s impressions were that it was polytheistic, however it is arguably both. In fact, in Hinduism they are not mutually exclusive. Krishna is but one of the incarnations of Vishnu, who is himself simply a manifestation of the ultimate reality, Brahman, that may be worshipped individually. You may have seen the symbol that designates the essence of this reality—OM—in yoga studios. You see, in Hinduism, there is an ultimate reality that connects us all. Even the divine element—the imago Dei (viz., image of God), if I may use a Christian term—of the human being, the Atman, relates to this reality and is sometimes ambiguously identical to it. And this idea of interconnectedness is one that I find quite beautiful. We shall encounter it again in religions such as Buddhism, albeit in a different way.

I hope that what I have said demonstrates that wisdom is not limited to one particular school of thought, nor indeed one particular part of the world. Suffice it to say that Hinduism is a religion in awe of this supreme reality that defies our experiences of the everyday and yet is those experiences at the same time. This, too, we shall encounter again, but for now, consider all that I’ve said. Consider how there is much wisdom in this, one of the world’s oldest religions, and how many millennia ago they began to ponder a mystery that would capture humanity’s interest for centuries to come and that we will be following over the coming months.