There are, in particular, some suggestions that the religion practised in the Indus valley may have had its effect on the later Hindu religion. The 'great bath' at Mohenjo-daro may well have had ritual purposes,' which reminds us today of the various Hindu ceremonies of purification. Among the few major stone objects from the Indus valley sites are shaped stones, which many observers have pointed out may hold a phallic significance,4 but they also resemble quite closely the lingam, the sacred stone dedicated to the Lord Shiva in modem Hindu practice. There arc other indications, for instance the seated figure, in yoga po&tion, seen on an Indus valley sealstone· has been equated by some with representations of the Lord Shiva himself. Of course, continuity of cult need not indicate continuity of language, but there is no inherent reason why the people of the Indus valley Civilization should not already have been speaking an Indo-European language, the ancestor of the Rigveda.

The Hindu tradition provides exquisite, firm guidance toward this attunement because it has always recognized that different temperaments take different paths into the Sacred Marriage. It has not only recognized the validity of other religions, but has also acknowledged within itself a variety of paths." No other mystical tradition has had so broad and wise and all-embracing a Vision of the different aspects and faces of the path. As Robin Zaehner used to say, "If anyone feels excluded from the Hindu embrace it is by his or her own perverse choice." "Perhaps the supreme gift of Hinduism to the world is that its Tantric traditions have kept the truth of the splendor, majesty and power of the Bride vibrant and alive in all her unbridled fullness. Worshipping Her as Devi, Ambika, Durga, Lakshmi or Kali, the Hindu Tantric mystics have known how to adore Her both as Queen of Transcendence and Earth Mother, and love Her both in Her terrifying, life-devouring aspects and as infinitely benign and tender.

As the Hindu gods are "immortal" only in a very particular sense---for they are born and they die---they experience most of the great human dilemmas and often seem to differ from mortals in a few trivial details...and from demons even less. Yet they are regarded by the Hindus as a class of beings by definition totally different from any other; they are symbols in a way that no human being, however "archetypal" his life story, can ever be. They are actors playing parts that are real only for us; they are the masks behind which we see our own faces.

In Hinduism, classical dance is conceived as an internalized spiritual practice: using movement, sound and emotion to internalize the cosmology and epistemology within the dancer's body. It is the only major world religion to have been successfully transmitted through such embodiment for so long. This is exemplified by the iconographic depiction of Shiva-Nataraja, which is a stylized projection of Shiva manifested as the ascetic master of sacred dance. Similarly, the narratives and iconography of Krishna dancing with his devotees exemplifies, evokes and reinforces the 'rasa' (inner emotional states) of the devotees as they attempt to unite inwardly with their 'ishta-devata' (personal deity). Such expressions are not reserved for use by a spiritual elite; rather, they inform and engage the entire culture and are part of the folk narratives known to every Hindu.

Hinduism and many of the occult activities that come out of the Orient are inspired by demons and demon worship. . . . There’s this concept that all religions are the same and all are good. That is not true. The worship of the Devil is not good.

I was impressed by the way that Hindus relate to the land of India and the holy places, and was moved by the great variety of pilgrimages and holy animals and plants and festivals. There are so many aspects of Hinduism that link it to the land and to the natural world in India. It is also closely linked to the culture and languages of India.

In Hindu lore, each of the three primal gods appeared in many forms. Siva could be Parmeswara. Vishnu could be Narasimha or Venkatarama. They had consorts and relatives, each of whom themselves had, over the centuries, become the objects of worship, the centers of their own cults. Vishnu, for example, was worshipped in the form of his consort Lakshmi, and as the monkey god, Hanuman. Each was endowed with distinct personalities; each gained its own adherents. Some worshippers, certainly, construed those stone figures literally, viewed them as gods, pure and simple, in a way not so different from the grama devata worship of the villages. Indeed, one history of South India spoke of a "fusion of village deities and Vedic Brahminical deities" going back to around the beginning of the Christian era that had brought a comingling of different forms of worship. But sophisticated Hindus, at least, understood that these stone "deities" merely represented forms or facets of a single godhead; in contemplating them, you were reawakened to the Oneness of all things. For those whose worship remained primitive, meanwhile, the garish stone figures could be seen as hooks by which to snare the spiritually unsophisticated and direct them toward something higher and finer. The genius of Hinduism, then, was that it left room for everyone. It was a profoundly tolerant religion. It denied no other faiths. It set out no single path. It prescribed no one canon of worship and belief. It embraced everything and everyone. Whatever your personality there was a god or goddess, an incarnation, a figure, a deity, with which to identify, from which to draw comfort, to rouse you to a higher or deeper spirituality. There were gods for every purpose, to suit any frame of mind, any mood, any psyche, any stage or station of life. In taking on different forms, God became formless; in different names, nameless.

Actually, dance forms an intrinsic part of worship in the temples. . . . India alone has a concept of a God who dances. Siva is Nataraja, Lord of dancers, who dances in the Hall of Consciousness and weaves into it the rhythm of the Universe. Within His Cosmic Dance are included the Divine prerogatives of Creation, Preservation, Regeneration, Veiling and Benediction . . . Dance in India has been so closely linked with religion, that today it is impossible to think of it divorced from this essential background.

The Hindus used to go on pilgrimage to it whenever there was an eclipse of the moon, and would then assemble there to the number of more than a hundred thousand. They believed that the souls of men used to meet there after separation from the body, and that the idol used to incorporate them at its pleasure in other bodies in accordance with their [p. 134] doctrine of transmigration. The ebb and flow of the tide was considered to be the worship paid to the idol by the sea. Everything of the most precious was brought there as offerings, and the temple was endowed with more than 10,000 villages. There is a river (the Ganges) which is held sacred, between which and Somnat the distance is 200 parasangs. They used to bring the water of this river to Somnat every day, and wash the temple with it. A thousand brahmans were employed in worshipping the idol and attending on the visitors, and 500 damsels sung and danced at the door-all these were maintained upon the endowments of the temple. The edifice was built upon fifty-six pillars of teak, covered with lead. The shrine of the idol was dark, but was lighted by jewelled chandeliers of great value. Near it was a chain of gold weighing 200 mans. When a portion (watch) of the night closed, this chain used to be shaken like bells to rouse a fresh lot of brahmans to perform worship.

Shiva, Varuna, Yama, Durga-Parvati, we already said it, are deities of IE origin, the rituals concerning fire, soma and the person of the king are equally of IE if not Indo-Iranian origin. But it is now obvious that the Indo-Aryans, upon arriving in India, have amply harvested the Harappan heritage and included its ritual customs (construction of hearth-altars, rites inside buildings, use of the stellar vestment, ritual baths, fixation of feasts on the stellar equinoxes…) in their own religion.

Yes, India is the land of the Gods par excellence... The experience of the divine presence in India is within the reach of anyone who searches even a little bit. The temples are full of flowers and offerings, and you only have to flow along with the crowd, melt into it and place yourself in the hands of the Gods. I do not advocate conversion to Hinduism, but I do recommend its inspiration. I told this to the brahmins that took me into their homes. One said, 'Establish your reawakened Paganism on a valid foundation and there'll come a day when it will catch on. It won't be long.' As true Pagans, they feel no need to convert anyone.

India presents to the visitor an overwhelmingly visual impression. It is beautiful, colorful, and sensuous. It is captivating and intriguing, repugnant and puzzling. It combines the intimacy and familiarity of English four o'clock tea with the dazzling foreignness of carpisoned elephants or vast crowds bathing in the Ganga during an eclipse. India's displays of multi-armed images, its processions and its pilgrimages, its beggars and Its kings, its street life and markets, its diversity of people - all appear to the eye in a kaleidoscope of images. Whatever Hindus affirm of the meaning of life, death, and suffering, they affirm with their eyes wide open.

For instance, in Hinduism and Buddhism, mantras, or sacred chants, which encapsulate many of the key insights of the tradition, are taught to children before they can even understand their meaning. Their chanting is considered effective even without this understanding. Through their vibrations, these mantras exert an impact directly on the body down to the cellular or even subtler levels, and become profoundly internalized and transformative.

Nothing can be more untrue than to pretend that the general religious mind of India has not at all grasped the higher spiritual or metaphysical truths of Indian religion. It is a sheer falsehood or a wilful misunderstanding to say that it has lived always in the externals only of rite and creed and shibboleth. On the contrary, the main metaphysical truths of Indian religious philosophy in their broad idea-aspects or in an intensely poetic and dynamic representation have been stamped on the general mind of the people. The ideas of Maya, Lila, divine Immanence are as familiar to the man in the street and the worshipper in the temple as to the philosopher in his seclusion, the monk in his monastery and the saint in his hermitage. The spiritual reality which they reflect, the profound experience to which they point, has permeated the religion, the literature, the art, even the popular religious songs of a whole people.