All About Hinduism
Hindu American Foundation 24 episodes May 8, 2025
All About Hinduism is an educational podcast from the Hindu American Foundation that explains the world’s oldest and third-largest religion in accessible terms. Host Mat McDermott covers core concepts such as karma, dharma, and sacred texts, while also addressing common questions and misconceptions. The show presents Hinduism as a lived, contemporary spiritual path and explores how the tradition has developed over time. It also discusses more contentious issues in Hindu history and modern practice without avoiding difficult topics.
Episodes
A story about cultural appropriation and open-mindedness
If this collection of practices, teachings, philosophies, and methodologies for living, for spiritual exploration that we call Hinduism, that we call the Hindu Dharma Traditions, has real value in the world for people who may never fully embrace it or call themselves Hindu — and it certainly does, of that I am entirely convinced — then I think we must be careful to be as welcoming of people dippin
All About the Third Nature, a Hindu approach to thinking about gender and sexuality
Complex and nuanced discussions about gender roles, stereotypes and expectations, the varieties of sexual attraction and social expectations — and the alphabet soup of identity categories that has emerged in recent years — is something that in the Hindu Dharma Traditions and in the societies out of which these traditions have emerged has occurred for centuries and centuries.Missed the first series
Yoga… so much more than downward dogs and headstands
Global yoga is a multi-billion dollar a year fitness, health, and wellness industry, with all sorts of people from all walks of life and with a full range of spiritual inclinations, including plenty of people who discount anything spiritual taking part. Ultimately though, yoga is much more than all this. The physical practice is just one small part of yoga as it was passed down from teacher to stu
What’s the difference between a Hindu monk, priest, and guru?
In some religious traditions, the person who overseas services and rituals, advises members of the community on spiritual or social matters, knows the history of the tradition, studies scripture, or dedicates their life to full-time religious pursuit is the same person — or at least some of those functions all overlap. In Hinduism is generally doesn’t work like that. Missed the first series of epi
What are the major holidays and festivals of Hinduism
When you consider all the different parts of the Hindu Dharma Traditions, there is a holiday, festival, or commemoration of some sort for nearly every day of the year.Missed the first series of episodes of All About Hinduism? Start here on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
What are the main sects of Hinduism?
All of the world’s religions have internal divisions, sometimes deep ones. Hinduism too has internal sub-divisions, though the differences between them are less contentious than in some other traditions, and are more a matter of preference in what forms of the Divine are the focus of veneration and contemplation.Missed the first series of episodes of All About Hinduism? Start here on Apple Podcast
Who do Hindus worship?
How do Hindus today actually think about and interact with the multitude of representations and aspects of Divinity? Are there really 2 million gods that are worshiped within the Hindu Dharma traditions? Is Hinduism polytheistic, monotheistic, pantheistic? Something else can you say that all the different parts of this collection of traditions are in agreement on this?Missed the first series of ep
How do Hindus worship, and is this even the best word to use?
Worship is an old word, but one that doesn’t fully represent the ways in which Hindus honor the divine, whether in their homes or in temples.Missed the first series of episodes of All About Hinduism? Start here on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
We’re Back: All About Hinduism Series 2 teaser, with a note on formatting
Want to learn all about Hinduism, the world's oldest and third-largest religion? Like actually understand what karma is? Or what dharma means? Do you want to know what the sacred texts of Hinduism are? Or, maybe, you just want to know why Hindu women wear a dot on their forehead? Or, perhaps, if all Hindus vegetarian? If so, then All About Hinduism is just what you’ve been waiting for. We’ll give
Why the way we talk about Hinduism needs to change
One of the underlying themes in the first series of episodes of All About Hinduism is that this spiritual tradition is often misunderstood by those people outside of it. Some of this misunderstanding is basic exposure to Hinduism and Hindus. But sometimes, we Hindus ourselves are unwittingly to blame. If we want non-Hindus to better understand Hinduism and we want to ourselves better understand Hi
We've got to talk about caste
Caste is one of the most complicated and misunderstood concepts encountered when attempting to understand India and Hinduism. Yet caste and a so-called caste system have become the singular focus of how Indian and Hindu society and culture are seen by the West — and increasingly being focused on by activists within the diaspora. Sources:German Indology, Aryanism, and Anti-Semitism, by Vishwa Adlur
We’ve got to talk about the word Aryan
If you think of Nazis, white supremacists, the Holocaust, a rabble of Fred Perry-wearing white dudes marching in Charlottesville, Virginia chanting “Jews will not replace us”, we don’t blame you. If your primary source of knowledge about India is your average high school textbook or mass market travel guideyou might also conjure up images of a group of light-skinned Aryans invading India in
The big popular misconceptions about Hinduism episode
Hindu teachings and traditions continue to be widely misunderstood because of inaccurate or stereotyped, caricatured “caste, cows, and karma” portrayals. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
What are the yamas and niyamas?
Hinduism’s most basic ethical foundation — its guidelines, observances, and practices for living — are called yama and niyama. As most generally expressed, there are five of each. The yamas are often described as principles, while the niyamas are often called practices or observances. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
What is reincarnation?
The cycle of reincarnation — birth, death, and rebirth — is called samsara. It is the process through which individual divine consciousness or souls, for lack of better word, repeatedly take on a physical body through being born on Earth. Though these physical bodies die, each immortal soul continues to exist, until being reincarnated again and again, in a process of spiritual evolution and
What karma is, and isn't
Despite the fact that the word karma is arguably one of the most common Hindu concepts to have entered into casual usage in the Western world, it's a much understood topic, both overly complicated and sometimes overly simplified. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
What is dharma?
One-word English translations of dharma provided by scholars are numerous. Law, duty, custom, religion, path are all regularly used. But none of those singularly hold together the multifaceted nature of the word, the many ways in which it’s used. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
What are the main Hindu rites of passage and sacraments?
Every culture marks moments in human life in some way. We honor and recognize those points where our experience of and place in society moves, through a doorway, passing from one room, as it were, to the next. In doing so, in making that passage, we become changed. In Hinduism these rites of passage, these sacraments, are called samskāra. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more infor
Are all Hindus vegetarian?
Hindu scripture is replete with passages supporting vegetarian diet. In practice less than half of all Hindus are fully vegetarian. In this episode we explore why that is, the Hindu environmental case for vegetarianism, and a dharmic perspective on veganism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
What are the main spiritual texts of Hinduism?
Hinduism does not one single book that all Hindu lineages turn to. Rather, Hinduism has a truly vast collection of ancient religious writings. Let’s sort it all out. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Who is a Hindu?
In this episode we go over the multiple definitions of Hindu identity, from religious leaders, the Indian Supreme Court, and more. We end with the stories of Fred Stella and Drishti Mae, who were raised Catholic and Muslim respectively, but adopted Hinduism later in life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
What does the word Hindu mean, anyway?
You’d think that the origin of the word we use in English for the world’s third-largest religion would be pretty easy to sort out. And certainly we’d be using the word for the world’s oldest religion that the billion people who ascribe to it themselves call it. Well, it’s not so simple when it comes to Hinduism. Though the word Hindu today refers to a self-identified follower of the rel
If you know nothing else about Hinduism, know this.
Hinduism is not just one thing. What should one know about Hinduism to be on solid ground when talking about it? How does Hinduism view itself? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
All about All About Hinduism
Want to learn all about Hinduism, the world's oldest and third-largest religion? Like actually understand what karma is? Or what dharma means? Do you want to know what the sacred texts of Hinduism are? Or, maybe, you just want to know why Hindu women wear a dot on their forehead? Or, perhaps, if all Hindus vegetarian? If so, then All About Hinduism is just what you’ve been waiting for. W
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