An Introduction to Hinduism Quotes

“The term yoga, derived from the Sanskrit root yuj, ‘to control’, “to yoke’ or ‘to unite’, refers to these technologies or disciplines of asceticism and meditation which are thought to lead to spiritual experience and profound understanding or insight into the nature of existence. Yoga is the means whereby the mind and senses can be restrained, the limited, empirical self or ego (ahamkara) can be transcended and the self’s true identity eventually experienced. It is this aspect of Hinduism which is not necessarily confined to any particular Hindu worldview [...] The concept of yoga as a spiritual discipline not confined to any particular sectarian affiliation or social form, contains the following important features: — consciousness can be transformed through focusing attention on a single point; — the transformation of consciousness eradicates limiting, mental constraints or impurities such as greed and hate; — yoga is a discipline, or range of disciplines, constructed to facilitate the transformation of consciousness.”
― Gavin D. Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism

“The origin of the doctrines of karma and samsara are obscure. These concepts were certainly circulating among the Sramanas, and Jainism and Buddhism developed specific and sophisticated ideas about the process of transmigration. It is very possible that karma and reincarnation entered mainstream brahmanical thought from the s§ramana or renouncer traditions. Yet on the other hand, although there is no clear doctrine of transmigration in the vedic hymns, there is the idea of ‘redeath’: that a person, having died in this world, might die yet again in the next. Ritual procedures are meant to prevent this eventuality. From the notion of redeath the idea of a return to this world could have developed. We also have in the Rg Veda the idea that different parts of a person go to different places upon death: the eyes go to the sun, the breath (atman) to the wind, and the essential ‘person’ to the ancestors. Rebirth into this world could have developed from this partite view of a person.”
― Gavin D. Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism