Western thought began in ancient Greece where men like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle saw that the universe had a plan and purpose. Eastern thinking says everything is temporary, changing, unreal, ephemeral and our perceptions of the world are misleading and illusory. The physical universe is a hindrance to experiencing The Ultimate Reality, which Eastern religion says is attainable within each individual by realizing intuitively that “self” is Divine and God is impersonal.

Learn what the word Pantheism means:

Pan = everything; Theos = God

Patheism = God is the world and everything in it.

According to the later Vedic literature, the highest goal of Hinduism is union with Brahma (a formless, abstract, eternal being without attributes, who was the beginning of all things, or the impersonal absolute).

A brief history: In 500 B.C, the Varna was established, adding more writings to the already existing Hindu Scriptures. Varna is a rigid castes system, or rather, a social hiercachy. In 1947 India became a nation. The government officially outlawed discrimination against the “untouchables,” the lowest on a social totem pole and considered to be sub-human (thanks to Christian missionaries).

This is a great post on Hinduism written by adoptingjames. This is very informative and may surprise you about what Hinduists believe. In Hinduism, they would be fine with the worship of Jesus…what about the rest of what they believe?

To finish reading this article, please head over to http://adoptingjames.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/hinduism-we-are-all-divine/