The term and concept of Hinduism were coined only in recent times. Otherwise, there was really no such thing. The word “Hindu” essentially comes from the word Sindhu. Anyone who is born in the land of Sindhu is a Hindu. It is a cultural and geographic identity.
The core principles of Hinduism are equal respect for all living organisms, divinity in everything, and all of it existing for eternity.
Being a Hindu does not mean having a particular belief system. Basically, the whole culture was oriented towards realizing one’s full potential. Whatever you did in this culture was Hindu. There is no particular god or ideology that you can call as the Hindu way of life. You can be a Hindu irrespective of whether you worship a man-god or a woman-god, whether you worship a cow or a tree. If you don’t worship anything you can still be a Hindu.
Hindu was never an “ism”, and the attempt to organize it as a religion is still not successful because the Hindu way of life which is referred to as Sanatana Dharma or universal law is all-inclusive in nature and does not exclude anything. The Hindu way of life is not an organized belief system but a science of salvation.
If there are five people in your family, each one can worship the God of their choice, or not worship anything, and still be a good Hindu. So you are a Hindu irrespective of what you believe or don’t believe.
In this culture, the only goal in human life liberation or Mukti. Liberation from the very process of life, from everything that you know as limitations and to go beyond that. God is not held as the ultimate thing, God is seen as one of the stepping stones. – Sadhguru
You can worship a rock, a cow, your mother – you can worship whatever you feel like – because this is a culture where we have always known that God is our making.
Everywhere else people believe “God created us.” Here we know we created a god so we take the total freedom to create whatever kind of god we can relate to. People worshiped whatever aspect of life they related to most, and that was perfectly fine.
“Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti” – Rig Veda, 1-164-146
The truth is One, sages call it by different names. (God, Brahman, Allah, Isvara, Jesus, etc., are one). Hindus understand that the same god is called by different names and worshiped in different ways.
Hinduism does not focus on itself (the religion), rather it focuses on guiding a person to rid himself of all material things (including religion) and reach the Brahman. Hinduism focuses on god/self. It does not focus on religion as an entity. It never tries or wants to spread itself.
You can be a Hindu and still worship Allah or Jesus or Buddha if you like, because as per a branch of Hinduism, all Gods are nothing but different ways to reach the same goal. You’re even free to not worship anyone at all, as Atheism in Hinduism is allowed.
Hinduism is not expected, because spiritual evolution should spring from one’s innate persona and not marketed as though it is consumer product – Raghu Bhaskaran
It’s Open Source, like Linux. Build your own modules that suit you and make you happy – Satish Vijaykumar