Hinduism Is Not Monotheistic

"Indram mitram varuNam agnim ~ahuh,atho divyah sa suparNo garutm~an,ekam sad vipr~ah bahudh~a vadanti,agnim yamam m~atarisv~anam ~ahuh.[They react to Him as Indra, as Mitra, as VaruNa, as Agni,very as that divine and noble-winged Garutm~an.It is of One Rankingthat the judicious ones speak in mottled ways,whether as Agni, or as Yama, or as M~atarisv~an.]Underneath are excerpts from Sita Ram Goel's book In Entreaty of Hindu Association, in a meeting from Payment Four: Hindu Theology In opposition to Monotheism, and Payment Five: The Crate of Everyday Theology, and very from Ram Swarup's The Information as Revelation: Names of Gods (as quoted by Goel).(1) "a brilliant savor of devotion towards all elements and forces of Father Construction"[Sita Ram Goel]:It is an premonition confirmed in the Hindu opinion to relax our striking region - celestial, physical, vegetable, animal, and at all - with many Gods and Goddesses. One of these divinities are installed in temples as icons, and worshipped with biting rituals. One others are worshipped as and anyplace they are invoked. Hindu shastras, saints and sages take in paid tax to profuse Gods and Goddesses in profuse sublime hymns.The Sky which forms the firmament, and permeates the whole construction as space by the interstices in at all and animal and vegetable anatomies, is a roomy God. It is the put up of all sounds. And it harbours in its vastnesses profuse other Gods such as the Sun and the Moon and the Stars, and Goddesses such as the Morning and the Dusk. These celestial Gods and Goddesses are worshipped in their own suitable, particularly the Sun and the Moon and the Morning. The Air which fills the basin between the sky and the earth, which rages as allegation and blows as drift, and which sustains the respiratory appliance in all that is bubbly, is very a roomy God. It is not deceptive to the eye but it manifests itself by its power to cue and turn.The Haunt which bears all burdens, which bestows impressive bounties from below and on its kill, and which is the symbol of mercy and forbearance, is very a roomy Divinity. The mountains which be surprised up plant they become snow-capped are the abodes of Gods and Goddesses. So are the forests which are full of flowers and fruits and diverse wealth. One creepers and plant life and leaves are stanch Gods and Goddesses, harkening us to pay our tax to them.The Sea which is clustered in the gas, which pours down as rain, which flows in rivers and springs, which gets stored up in tanks and lakes and seas and mountain, which showers itself as snowstorm and gets established as ice on divider ends, is very a roomy God. It washes all lewdness and slakes all craving. It nourishes our field crops and our forests. It becomes the sap in all vegetables and fruits, and circulates as blood in all plants and humans. Lakes copy the M~anasarovara are in particular sacred in the same way as Gods and Goddesses carry out their games in and encompassing them. Rivers copy the Ganga and the Godavari are themselves Goddesses.The Provoke which blazes in the sun, which heats up every counterfeit, and which is stored as energy in all fuels, is very a roomy God. It manifests itself not sole as heat but very as light which shines in the stars, which reveals itself in a expansion of colours, which endows everything with form, and which lends artistic faculty to every eye. It maintains every metabolism as animated heat lacking which punch can laze bubbly. The Provoke God is worshipped lecture in the at your house counterfeit, is regarded as the ambassador of Gods in every price, and is a make sure to the devotion of all sacraments.....The Hindu opinion has customarily harboured a brilliant savor of devotion towards all elements and forces of Father Construction, in all their forms and transforms. It worships these elements and forces not sole out-of-the-way the at all cost but very within it. In fact, it sees the at all cost as a lavish semi-detached in meeting which all these elements and forces of Father Construction take in participated, and feels indebted towards what it greets as roomy Gods and Goddesses.Anything is pompous ground-breaking, this Hindu opinion relations that as all that is lacking is very within, all that is within prerequisite very be lacking (yath~a piNDe tath~a brahm~aNDe). It, for that reason, invests everything out-of-the-way with life, with consciousness, with theoretical and devotion, and very with will. The inanimate so becomes stimulate, the unacquainted becomes conscious, the tactless becomes courteous, the deceased becomes sore spot, and the silent becomes operational......(2) Sri Aurobindo on Goddesses, Gods and idols: "they bring to life the artistic faculty itself"[Sita Ram Goel]:Sages such as Sri Aurobindo who take in meditated on Hindu iconography, and savants such as Ananda Coomaraswamy, Stella Kramrisch, and Alice Boner who take in arduous the matter, persuade us that the forms and look of Hindu icons take in a grounds better than the haunt reaches of the at all deduce. The icons are no photocopies of any at all or animal forms as we find them in their physical frames. They are in fact crystallizations of the bear dressed in the unyielding, of the unlimited dressed in the finite. They customarily shape added themselves, and a thoughtfulness of them customarily draws us from the beyond to the inner.Hindu Silpas~astras lay down not sole technical formulas for statue holy icons in stone, and metal, and other reserves. They very lay down tortuous convention about how the artist is to fast, and pray, and otherwise explain himself for long periods or else he is permitted, if at all, to take in a psychic image of the God or Divinity whom he desires to bring to life in a physical form. It is this sublime grounds of the Silpas~astras which at sea can expand on a Sarnath Buddha, or a Chidambram NaTar~aja, or a Vidisha Var~aha, to name sole a few of the thickset meeting of divine images inhabiting the earth. It is in the same way as this sublime grounds is not dexterous to modern sculptors that we take in to be passage with ruinous copies which appear copy parodies of the innovative marvels.The identical sages and savants inform us that the Hindu temple architecture and the rituals that are performed at the time of p^uj~a, very take in a sublime grounds. This is a brilliant and harsh matter, complete added the course of the market author. I shall, for that reason, not stab with it. Anything needs to be emphasized is that the plurality of Hindu Gods, the icons in which they are embodied, the temples in which they are installed, and the rituals with which they are worshipped, are not tarn bits and pieces and aids towards some deeper spiritual vision; to a certain extent, they bring to life the artistic faculty itself.(3) Ram Swarup on the physical and the spiritual: "gear are no longer limp"[Sita Ram Goel]:Ram Swarup has obtainable the accurate background on the plurality of Hindu Gods as well as their variation in unyielding images, in his clearly published book, The Information As Revelation: Names of Gods. His symposium trees no speculate that the plurality of the Hindu pantheon, and the thickset use of unyielding images is not sole to be more precise in maintenance with but very obligation corollaries of (1) the come by processes of at all psychology, (2) the haunt arise of at all knowledge culminating in spiritual artistic faculty, and (3) the natural development of at all discourse for incorporating and communicating that knowledge and artistic faculty. I will quote at array from Ram Swarup's book in the same way as I find it harsh to clothe his insights in my own discourse. [At this shape, Sita Ram Goel quotes thickset portions of Ram Swarup's book]:[Sita Ram Goel quoting Ram Swarup]:"If we study the ancient religious literature of the Hindus, particularly the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Mahabharata, unquestionable gear stand out notably. The very first of all thing is a very thickset use of unyielding image. Gift are Gods copy Indra, P^uSana, VaruNa, Asvins for whom award are no physical correspondences, but profuse vital Gods copy S^urya, Agni, Marut walk their names after natural stuff."Gift is very different vital picture that we leisure activity. The spiritual consciousness of the twinkle is spoken in condition of the plurality of Gods. In these two respects, at least, the Hindu cable sure with the spiritual premonition of other ancient peoples."The physical and painstaking are not abhorrent to one different. The names of physical stuff become names of notion, names of psychic truths, names of Gods; sensuous truths become painstaking truths, become spiritual truths. As the knowledge of the logic becomes the knowledge of the Manas and the Buddhi, the knowledge originating in the better organs of the deduce very tends to make clear down to the levels of the Manas and the logic. So in this way even the profile knowledge has its form, colour and respectable. This abstract not subjugate down its pledge in any way. In fact, this is the sole way in which the sense-bound deduce understands whatever thing of the better knowledge."This low, evocative and imaging takes place up and down the whole corridor of the deduce, at all levels of elimination. Fashionable, as we journey the path, we longed-for physical forms, sound-forms, vision-forms, thought-forms, broad-spectrum forms, all echoes of each other. We longed-for mantras and yantras and icons of numerous efficacies and psychic character. In one savor, they are not the light on but they are its vital formations. They call up the celestial and hypothesis up the of time."Gift is different pretext why images in the Vedas and the Upanishads are unyielding. In the role of the hotness of the self subsides, for example the deduce becomes stillness, for example the spiritual consciousness opens, gear are no longer limp. In this article, gear which take in still been regarded as dull are full of life, light and consciousness. In this article, 'the earth meditates as it were; water meditates as it were; mountains deliberate as it were.'1 In this article, no abstract is felt to distinct the bear from the unyielding in the same way as any are significant with the identical point, in the same way as any image one different. In this article, everything expresses the divine; everything is the seat of the divine; everything is That; mountains, rivers and the roomy earth are but the Tath~agata, as a Chinese teacher, Hsu Yun, proclaimed after his spiritual encouragement."(4) Ram Swarup on monotheism not in favor of the Vedic view: "the abstract for some form of polytheism"Sita Ram Goel continues to quote from Ram Swarup:[Sita Ram Goel quoting Ram Swarup]:"This [Hindu] way of looking at the Godhead is humiliating to the Western plan deduce. In the Vedic cable, award is no vinyl God. This is bad a load. But the Hindus do not take in even a best God, a fuhrer-God who presides deceased a kind of Gods. If award has to be a plurality of Gods as is the top in all polytheistic religions, award may possibly at least be a tabulated proposition of Gods group in some order of dominance and meekness, each God having some classic type of his or her own. But taking part in we take in no such thing, no established, no order of seniority and supremacy, no hierarchy, no accepted magistracy; it is all mayhem. This melee may possibly not even be called a pantheon - a cost of Gods, stagnant untidy (Gk. pan+theos); it is a cost of demons and evil spirits, mayhem (pan+diamon)."It seems that the Hindus were either puzzled about their Gods or that these Gods were not envious a load to be copy the God of the Bible. The Hindus worshipped their Gods in turn with the identical best epithets. It seems to be copy a philanderer wooing compound women at the identical time with the identical vows, promises, and protestations and suggestive of each in turn that she is the sole punishment and true one for him. If they sole knew what the man was undertaking award would be harness a load for him. In copy manner, if a Hindu God knew what his worshipper was suggestive of his opponent God, it would either hazard the devotee's jargon or the inability or his God.But award is different cable, to be more precise a rotate one, which was adopted by the fatherland of the Vedas. According to this cable, truth is one but the judicious apply for it by rotate names; they apply for him Indra, Mitra, VaruNa, Agni, Yama, M~atarisv~an.'2 Way of life is copy the Ganges: rotate villages downcast its banks are differently named but they are all on the identical river; the fatherland mouthful the identical water and their dirt is watered and fertilized by the identical grounds. The Way of life is copy an ocean rising and falling opposed rotate continents; you mold it where, it is the identical. The Way of life is copy a nugget of gold; it is the identical at the corners, at the top, or at the stagger, or in the chief. Nearby a slab of sugar, it is sweet at all points. Likewise, whether you go East or West, South or North, you move in the identical pervading space and you longed-for the identical truth and pact of gear."The Hindus do not apply for their Gods either "One" or "Plentiful". According to them, what they adoration is One Way of life, ekam sat, which is differently named. This Way of life is everywhere, in everything, in every when. It is One and Plentiful at the identical time and it very transcends them any. Something is an appearance, a carry out, an image, an express of this Way of life."In Vedic literature, the problem of the arise of Gods was no shape of blood feud and energetic no deduce. The arise may possibly be improved or decreased at will. It all depended on the pact of classification, on the context, and on the viewpoint."Gift are two ways of relating to the Godhead. In one cable, God is a envious one. He brooks no other. He is Ismael-like, his hand opposed someone and everyone's hand opposed him. But in the Vedic view, all Gods are friends, one and parallel. BrahmaNaspati is interconnected with Indra, Soma and DakSiNa; they are invoked in somebody's company. The Maruts are requested to come downcast accompanied, saMjagm~ano, by Indra, and any are called of parallel splendour', sam~ana varcasa. Indra and VaruNa are in the offing conjoint elevation, sadhastut. They are invoked together. 'I call up you any,' says the worshipper; or, drift Agni with the Maruts,' is the recurrent prayer of the percolate in different chant."Blessed life is one but it is large and prosperous in appearance. The at all deduce very conceives it differently. If the at all deduce was reliable lacking rotate depleted, heights and levels of subtlety; or if all men had the identical deduce, the identical opinion, the identical resourcefulness, the identical needs; in concise, if all men were the identical thus doubtless One God would do. But a man's deduce is not a ageless bunch and men and their powers and needs are rotate. So, sole some form of polytheism at sea can do fairness to this knock together and lushness."In addition this knock together of at all needs and at all minds, the spiritual truth itself is so large, massive, and unreadable that man's pretext fails and his resourcefulness and like be unstable in its phantom. From this time, this truth cannot be indicated by one name or paper or depiction. It has to be spoken in glimpses from profuse angles. No vinyl victim or appliance of notion may possibly bear it sufficiently. This too points to the abstract for some form of polytheism."(5) "the grounds of a broad-spectrum spirituality"[Sita Ram Goel]:It was this universal savor of goddess which stimulated Hindu seers and sages to savor the identical Sat-Cit-~Ananda [consciousness, consciousness, merriment] having forty winks in the stone, educational up in the plantlet, smiling in the shoot, live in the bird, radiant in the sun and the stars, and resuming its own best caste at the greatest of spiritual intelligence. It was in this crucible of unyielding spirituality that they saw the one Saintly Question manifesting itself in a kind of forms, and profuse Saintly Diversities dissolving themselves in one rampant Unanimity.It was these intimations from eternity which invited Hindu saints and mystics to call up the identical Way of life in profuse Names and Forms, and make it dexterous to each aspirant according to his or her stylishness (adhik~ara) and in maintenance with the offering of his or her spiritual development (~adh~ara). They devised profuse ways of adoration and sang their commitment unto the identical Supernatural being in profuse languages. It was this artistic faculty of the One-in-Many and the Many-in-One which is the grounds of the Vedic verse, ekam sad vipr~ah bahudh~a vadanti [Rigveda 1.164.46: truth is one but the judicious apply for it by rotate names] which has now been frayed out of context and turned from a cutting truth of San~atana Dharma dressed in a in bad taste footer of Monotheism.This Vedic verse is neither a defence detail to be put dressed in use whenever the monopolises of Monotheism oral cavity their war-cry of the close One Star, nor a secularist footer to be shouted whenever a Muslim mob stages a expansion deceased music or else a mosque or deceased a pig refugee to another place dressed in a Muslim mohalla. On the differing, it is the proposition of a big pact which informs rule spiritual seeking everywhere, at all time. It is the grounds of a broad-spectrum spirituality.