Hindu Monotheism

[duvduv]

Here is an interesting link that discusses the Kabbalistic names of God by permutations of Hebrew letters. Unfortunately I don't understand most of it myself. As I get older I like to simplify things in life wherever possible.
https://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/1388270/jewish/72-Names-of-G-d.htm

 

[duvduv]

Jainarayan, are you saying that the various Indian peoples have simply tried to adapt the ancient primitive religions to the later teachings of the Vedas so that in essence they all agree on certain common ideas and values gleaned from the Vedas and other teachings but have maintained the ancient primitive god names as a method of communication of Vedism?

I guess that would make sense to me, which would explain why today you say Hindus simply refer to worshiping God within all of the rituals and activities associated with various names and deities. This would also mean that essentially someone worshiping and praying to Vishnu, or Krishna, or Shiva, or Govinda, or whatever name are actually simply doing the same thing underneath it all.....ultimately seeking integration (moksha/nirvana) with the Ultimate God (i.e, whatever he is called, Narayana/Rama/Brahma/Brahman/Shiva/Vishnu/Krishna).

This understanding (if more or less accurate) would go a long way to understanding the language communicated by Hindus with non-Hindus who usually cannot make sense out of the religious language used and quoted. So take the case of the Bhagavad Gita. It doesn't really matter whether the Supreme Deity is called Krishna etc., but what matters is the philosophical/theological teaching being transmitted.

Then, how do we make sense of all the primitive storylines of the deities that are always discussed and recounted by Hindu teachings? How does one get through the metaphors and allegories to what is behind all of it??

 

[Kirran]

Very interesting observations everybody. I should note that in fact Kabbalah teaches philosophically that God is beyond all attributes as we understand them, BUT he expresses traits comprehensible to mankind (mercy, judgment, etc.) Indeed, the tree of kabbalah shows expansive traits on the right and restrictive traits on the left (i.e. Mercy versus Judgement, Wisdom versus Understanding).

Yeah, seems solid enough. Ekam sat again....

@duvduv what country are you in? Just come with me to temple for a few days, that'll sort this out way easier than any amount of discussion!

 

[duvduv]

Yeah, seems solid enough. Ekam sat again....

@duvduv what country are you in? Just come with me to temple for a few days, that'll sort this out way easier than any amount of discussion!

The Good old U S A !!

 

[Kirran]

The Good old U S A !!

Ah, well, I can't help you there then.

Also, old? The USA?

 

[LuisDantas]

Jainarayan, are you saying that the various Indian peoples have simply tried to adapt the ancient primitive religions to the later teachings of the Vedas so that in essence they all agree on certain common ideas and values gleaned from the Vedas and other teachings but have maintained the ancient primitive god names as a method of communication of Vedism?

I guess that would make sense to me, which would explain why today you say Hindus simply refer to worshiping God within all of the rituals and activities associated with various names and deities. This would also mean that essentially someone worshiping and praying to Vishnu, or Krishna, or Shiva, or Govinda, or whatever name are actually simply doing the same thing underneath it all.....ultimately seeking integration (moksha/nirvana) with the Ultimate God (i.e, whatever he is called, Narayana/Rama/Brahma/Brahman/Shiva/Vishnu/Krishna).

That is one way of looking at it. One that did not occur to me until now.

My personal tendency is to perceive valid religion as being continuously confronted with and calibrated by the reality of facts. The actual origin and even structure of the language and concepts is not nearly as important as how carefully and how sincerely the tradiction is kept and course corrected as needed.

This understanding (if more or less accurate) would go a long way to understanding the language communicated by Hindus with non-Hindus who usually cannot make sense out of the religious language used and quoted. So take the case of the Bhagavad Gita. It doesn't really matter whether the Supreme Deity is called Krishna etc., but what matters is the philosophical/theological teaching being transmitted.

For what it may be worth, so it seems to me.

Then, how do we make sense of all the primitive storylines of the deities that are always discussed and recounted by Hindu teachings? How does one get through the metaphors and allegories to what is behind all of it??

Making sense of received tradition is IMO an unavoidable duty of any religious person.

So is taking the responsability for our own interpretations, or perhaps those of one or more Gurus (teachers) that we choose to listen to.


That means, among other things, not excusing ourselves from basic morality nor of simple common sense while we are at our practice. And also deciding what we consider valid and under which role.

It can be difficult to notice when someone takes teachings as literal or metaphorical, even. And it is not all that often particularly important, far as I can see.

 

[duvduv]

I think it is in the Book of the Zohar where it says that the place of God's greatness is the place of his utter smallness. In the place of his pride there you shall find his humility.
But the most intriguing thing distinguishing the Jewish ideas of the divine is that the Supreme God becomes involved in direct involvement in historical events over a long period of time starting with Adam, then Noah, Abraham and then to Moses all the way to the prophets many many centuries later. And then of course there is the idea of particularist covenant with the Jews at Sinai and with the circumcision. I wonder how Hindu theology in general would look at that kind of picture.

 

[duvduv]

That is one way of looking at it. One that did not occur to me until now.

My personal tendency is to perceive valid religion as being continuously confronted with and calibrated by the reality of facts. The actual origin and even structure of the language and concepts is not nearly as important as how carefully and how sincerely the tradiction is kept and course corrected as needed.

For what it may be worth, so it seems to me.

Making sense of received tradition is IMO an unavoidable duty of any religious person.

So is taking the responsability for our own interpretations, or perhaps those of one or more Gurus (teachers) that we choose to listen to.

That means, among other things, not excusing ourselves from basic morality nor of simple common sense while we are at our practice. And also deciding what we consider valid and under which role.

It can be difficult to notice when someone takes teachings as literal or metaphorical, even. And it is not all that often particularly important, far as I can see.

Is it fair to say that the strange stories and myths of the gods and their fights, marriages, etc. is a holdover from the more ancient polytheistic world (as in Europe) and is essentially unimportant, or are they reinterpreted in Vedic theological terms with more important metaphorical/allegorical meaning?

 

[duvduv]

Ah, well, I can't help you there then.

Also, old? The USA?

It's an American slang term, "good old" referring to something well known and familiar.

 

[duvduv]

If I am correct in the clarifying of the language connected with Hinduism, it would go a very long way to establishing understanding in the Western mind and appreciation of Hinduism as a highly sophisticated religious and philosophical system. Some have already even seen a similarity to Nietsche and Plato, etc.

 

[Jainarayan]

Jainarayan, are you saying that the various Indian peoples have simply tried to adapt the ancient primitive religions to the later teachings of the Vedas so that in essence they all agree on certain common ideas and values gleaned from the Vedas and other teachings but have maintained the ancient primitive god names as a method of communication of Vedism?

It was an evolution, a slow growth. I don’t think the Vedas had the effect that the Ten Commandments had on the Hebrews or the Quran on what are now Muslims. It wasn’t “here are the Vedas... boom you have a religion to fit into”.

The Vedas were complied over centuries by many different rishis (sages) in a pastoral and illiterate society. For centuries they were passed down orally. Much of the Vedas is dedicated to gods of nature... Agni, Vayu, Dyaus Pitr, Varuna, Prithvi, respectively: fire, wind/air, the sky, waters, the earth. There is much mention of horses, which were extremely important to most Indo-European peoples.

Word and teachings spread. Keep in mind that the Vedas are apaurusheya, “not of man”. That is, they were divinely inspired to the rishis. There was no prophet, messenger or voice from the sky. Hence their gradual growth and spread.

 

[Kirran]

I think it is in the Book of the Zohar where it says that the place of God's greatness is the place of his utter smallness. In the place of his pride there you shall find his humility.
But the most intriguing thing distinguishing the Jewish ideas of the divine is that the Supreme God becomes involved in direct involvement in historical events over a long period of time starting with Adam, then Noah, Abraham and then to Moses all the way to the prophets many many centuries later. And then of course there is the idea of particularist covenant with the Jews at Sinai and with the circumcision. I wonder how Hindu theology in general would look at that kind of picture.

I don't know about those specific issues.

But I know a Jewish swami, and I asked him a couple days ago about if it meant anything to him this whole 'the Messiah gonna come' thing. He said he doesn't care now, cos once you've known a real guru it becomes irrelevant.

 

[duvduv]

It was an evolution, a slow growth. I don’t think the Vedas had the effect that the Ten Commandments had on the Hebrews or the Quran on what are now Muslims. It wasn’t “here are the Vedas... boom you have a religion to fit into”.

The Vedas were complied over centuries by many different rishis (sages) in a pastoral and illiterate society. For centuries they were passed down orally. Much of the Vedas is dedicated to gods of nature... Agni, Vayu, Dyaus Pitr, Varuna, Prithvi, respectively: fire, wind/air, the sky, waters, the earth. There is much mention of horses, which were extremely important to most Indo-European peoples.

Word and teachings spread. Keep in mind that the Vedas are apaurusheya, “not of man”. That is, they were divinely inspired to the rishis. There was no prophet, messenger or voice from the sky. Hence their gradual growth and spread.

Does this mean that the deeper ideas had been originally clothed in very primitive religious ideas of the very ancient peoples, or that their ideas were later adapted into the sophisticated Vedic ones? Of course this needs to touch upon the old debate as to whether in fact the Aryans were the originators of Vedic religion from OUTSIDE India or were native to India too. Or that it all originated in an Iranian region that spread and adapted east and west......

 

[duvduv]

I don't know about those specific issues.

But I know a Jewish swami, and I asked him a couple days ago about if it meant anything to him this whole 'the Messiah gonna come' thing. He said he doesn't care now, cos once you've known a real guru it becomes irrelevant.

I would say it differently and very universally. Once the Messiah does come and straightens out the whole world then God awareness will become the general understanding of all mankind, although it is more seen as coming from an external source for everyone rather than an individualized source one person at a time. And the Jewish messiah idea that predated the Christian idea is utterly different from that of the Christians.

 

[Jainarayan]

If I am correct in the clarifying of the language connected with Hinduism, it would go a very long way to establishing understanding in the Western mind and appreciation of Hinduism as a highly sophisticated religious and philosophical system. Some have already even seen a similarity to Nietsche and Plato, etc.

You mean Sanskrit? It is a highly, ridiculously highly inflected language whose poetry can be either crystal clear or annoyingly ambiguous. Part of the ambiguity is the inordinate number of synonyms and enormous vocabulary. Probably the largest of any Indo-European language. One linguist proposed that one sentence could be constructed 15 different ways and all of them were correct.

That flexibility has provided us with some of the most god-awful god-forsaken translations by westerners. That didn’t do much for painting a clear picture of Hinduism.

 

[Kirran]

I would say it differently and very universally. Once the Messiah does come and straightens out the whole world then God awareness will become the general understanding of all mankind, although it is more seen as coming from an external source for everyone rather than an individualized source one person at a time. And the Jewish messiah idea that predated the Christian idea is utterly different from that of the Christians.

Yeah, but what this dude was saying was not that - he was saying when you know a guru, then the messiah coming or not is irrelevant.

 

[LuisDantas]

Is it fair to say that the strange stories and myths of the gods and their fights, marriages, etc. is a holdover from the more ancient polytheistic world (as in Europe) and is essentially unimportant, or are they reinterpreted in Vedic theological terms with more important metaphorical/allegorical meaning?

I am not one to judge the validity of polytheistic mythology, and I am definitely not one to say that it is less important than monotheism.

It seems to me that any mythology is valid on its own terms if taken with the proper care and wisdom.

Then again, I still maintain that it is hardly important whether Hindu wisdom uses monotheistic language or some of the many alternatives. Or even whether that language is self-consistent in that respect. IMO theistic conceptions are only means for a higher end.

 

[duvduv]

You mean Sanskrit? It is a highly, ridiculously highly inflected language whose poetry can be either crystal clear or annoyingly ambiguous. Part of the ambiguity is the inordinate number of synonyms and enormous vocabulary. Probably the largest of any Indo-European language. One linguist proposed that one sentence could be constructed 15 different ways and all of them were correct.

That flexibility has provided us with some of the most god-awful god-forsaken translations by westerners. That didn’t do much for painting a clear picture of Hinduism.

No, I meant the communication of ideas and understanding of concepts. But I am fascinated by the idea of how potentially things in Hinduism could be so badly communicated because of ambiguities in Sanskrit that you describe.

 

[duvduv]

Yeah, but what this dude was saying was not that - he was saying when you know a guru, then the messiah coming or not is irrelevant.

I understood that, but the messiah is not only relevant for the individual but for mankind as a whole. Because it seems that Buddhism and even Hinduism do not provide what Judaism and Christianity and Islam do, a form of hope for the future of all of mankind, regardless of whether they are actually working on attaining personal enlightenment.

 

[Kirran]

I understood that, but the messiah is not only relevant for the individual but for mankind as a whole. Because it seems that Buddhism and even Hinduism do not provide what Judaism and Christianity and Islam do, a form of hope for the future of all of mankind, regardless of whether they are actually working on attaining personal enlightenment.

Absolutely not.

Aside from some dualist schools, there is no disagreement amongst these traditions with the ultimate fate of liberation and therefore salvation of all beings. This is the eventual destiny and indeed birthright of every soul.

There is not gonna be some future where the world becomes some happy place as a result of external factors. That wouldn't be at all getting to the root of suffering and its transcendence. Only realisation does that, and so only universal realisation can provide universal salvation.

It's actually rather a localised Western cultural mindset, this idea that the world will continue getting better until some ultimate good future where things are perfected. Born out of some religious interpretations originally, I think. But it's not universal, or even really especially convincing upon consideration.