User:PranavRamesh2478/Hindu eschatology

Hindu Eschatology In Daily Life
On a day-to-day basis, karma is implicitly weighed and taken into consideration by practitioners of Hinduism. In fact, this perspective on the long run consequences of daily actions has been shown to drastically impact consumer expectations in India. Empirical results support that "those who believe more strongly in karma are less influenced by disconfirmation sensitivity and therefore have higher expectations," which was noted by Praveen Kopalle, a professor at the Tuck School of Business. Although the advent of mass consumerism took India by storm at the turn of the century, research is showing that even in urban populations, consumer expectations are generally invariant to artificial lowering of expectations in order to increase short term pleasure. This uniquely characterizes religions that practice long-term orientation or similar framing of action. In Hindu eschatology, karma is the central determinant in how one's soul progresses through the cyclical stages of life, death, and rebirth, as every consequence is perceived as having non-trivial weight. As a result, actions broader than the individual scope are also taken into consideration. For example, the prevalent link between Indian party politics and Hinduism has additionally led to religious-based explanations for issues the country faces. One instance of this is present in an academic journal detailing a perspective on the cause behind COVID, which states “the COVID-19 pandemic is also the cause-effect of karmic activity that caused and appeared as a novel and severe viral infectious disease. The karmic action identified as the cause of the epidemic is … a neoliberal capitalist order driven by endless greed, desire, delusion in today’s aggressive and competitive world”. In accordance with Hindu eschatology, the current epoch of humanity is the kali yuga. As a cycle characterized by widespread suffering, hypocrisy, and the progressive degradation of morality, the pandemic arrived as a calamity of biblical proportions. Many Hindu-based interventions being coupled with traditional precautionary measures were employed to tackle the disease. For example, people in rural areas participated in a ritual twice a week where they would apply cow dung over their body and drink cow urine in the hopes that it increased immunity levels against COVID. Despite widespread pushback from Indian Public Health officials, these practices still gained traction throughout the country. Empirically, it is evident that Hindu eschatology has multi-faceted impacts on how practitioners of Hinduism carry themselves in both micro-experiences and the larger macrocosms of interaction.