Hindu Enough

“The ox’s big head gets through the window, as well as its entire body, except its tail gets stuck.”
This sentence is as much a mystery to me at the moment as it is to you. Lately, there has been a lot of discussion on religions and the nature of religion. At least I feel a bit more acquainted with my own religion. I had read in a Hindu book once that religion is like your mother, one that you are born to. Converting to another religion is abominable to most Hindus, especially if one barely understood their own religion to begin with. It’s like betraying your mother, because after all, no matter what her method of teaching is, the result would ultimately make you a moral or ethical person. Of course that doesn’t mean to have blind faith. I’m out to discover whether I have any reason to betray my mother religion.
As it is, Hinduism seems to be a difficult religion to get out of; it only engulfs. The different schools and denominations unite together under Hinduism. Diana Eck points out that it is the diversity that Hindus have in common: “Diversity unites rather than divides”. Consequently, Hindus are prone to an open mindedness, along with arguments ready to defend their own belief when it comes time. This has been inherent in me, without being taught it. I realize now that it stems from my very own mother. Perhaps I wasn’t explicitly taught the Bhagvad Gita, or the Vedas, or the Puranas, but I feel their essence runs through my veins anyway. Even then, am I not a Hindu because I’m not a vegetarian? I think the several options in Hinduism suggest that neither one is the ultimate truth, and I don’t think it really matters. Hinduism exists without having a specific definition, then why can’t God? This is the true Hindu essence. “Neti Neti” . I love my religion because it coincides with my belief that the truth, whatever it may be, has infinite possibilities.
I know I’m definitely categorized as a “Hindu”, but the doubt arises because I just don’t have a strong belief because among these infinite choices, unless I put utter faith in one, I do not have true faith. I have faith in the infinity, but not in one, unless this infinity is simply one.
If everything is one, and if we are God, and God is us, then is it God or is it us? I think here is where the ox’s tail gets stuck. Can we really ever have a specific truth? The fact that Hindus cannot even come to a common definition of Hinduism, and that even Christians cannot agree on Christianity emphasizes that even though we extract the truth from all our different religions, we cannot free that tail that possesses the final truth. Until we do, we have the eternal truth that none of us know the Truth. No matter how close we get to the truth, the tail will keep the ox from getting through the window.
After all, even Melville will agree that the tail or tale is all we have to know the creator’s truth. Melville will even carry it further and say that we are all Ahab in trying to capture that whale, perhaps to find in the end that there is nothing to capture at all. But my human mind won’t let me believe Melville, maybe because to imagine “nothing” is simply inconceivable. Again, neti neti. Hah, at least I’m essentially Hindu.