Hinduism is a way of life. Many people often think that Hinduism is a religion. Well, is it a religion? A religion is often defined by the prophet who regulates or fashions the rules and writes down how the followers must obey them.
Where Hinduism is concerned, there is no such prophet.
Some saints taught the people how to lead a better life like for example Adi Shankaracharya who sang 'Bhaja Govindam' and established temples throughout the country. The bhakti movement saw saints like Meera Bai and Tulsidas.
All of them helped lead the people toward a devotional lifestyle
Hindus offer prayers to a lot of gods and it is often criticized and even made fun of but if you study it closely, you will observe that we are worshipping the nature around us and living a life in harmony with nature. Every festival has a certain offering made to the deity and this will have some significance and be connected to that particular season. For example, the festival of Onam celebrated in Kerala is a harvest festival, and the feast known as Onam sadya is prepared from the vegetables harvested during the time.
Among the Hindus, there is the gotra system that segregates families based on lineage. This is to prevent marriages among close relatives and thus avoid genetical problems.
Hindus are never forced to pray nor are they forced to pay for absolving sins. Even temple visits are the choice of an individual and one is free to connect directly with god through mediation. Quieting one's mind is itself a form of meditation and one who practices silence will be able to control the mind easily or better than others who talk incessantly. Visiting temples does have perks though. Connecting with other people and enjoying festivities brings about happiness and removes stress to a large extent. Festivals are a time for meeting family and friends and also connecting with the roots. There are certain rituals and worship that also ensure public good and devotees are most glad about participating in such social get-togethers. The best examples are the Durga Puja, the Garba dance, the Dusshera festival, and so on.
Prayers are in the form of mantras that can be learned from a Guru or an elder. These mantras do have some restrictions about how and where to recite. Only some names like the Narayana mantra can be said at any time or place with a pure heart. Also, one should be very careful in properly reciting the mantra otherwise the opposite effect will be got. many people pronounce it wrongly and it is a wrong thing to do. Even pronouncing the Holy Gayatri mantra wrongly is bad. So, one has to preferably learn a mantra from the best Guru.
Hinduism is a vast area and one cannot comprehend the entire Shastras, Puranas, Upanishads, Vedas, etc in a short span. If you want to learn more about Hinduism, you can start by reading the comic books by Amar Chitra Katha, old issues of Chandamama, and 'Balvikas Chinna Katha'.
