How do you view the Gods?

[Rasa1976]

Namasté Rasa
I would agree Inert objects are Brahman, they are His Prakriti. They appear separate to us due to time and space (perceived by the senses), but all qualities are Brahman and are in Brahman. The mistake I once made was to see inert object as existing separately from me as I thought my limits were external i.e. my body. So I thought that "I and the diamond are two distinct object with no connection." This duality can lead to misery, as I never feel complete, desire arises for the object and misery when I cannot get it.

Rather, the scriptures confirm that our Atman is our real Self and the Atman is Brahman (connected without limit). So if all objects are In Brahman and I am Brahman (Atman) then I am One with all. We can look on at all as ultimately divine, I can worship a rock, a rat or my Guru, knowing I am worshiping the divine Self. It seems to be a shift in mental perception.


It is an interesting topic. The answer to the OP is that multiple Gods are just forms of the divine. To take them as seperate objects is not logically wrong but to remove the desire and misery to be close to God, one must know thyself, and this begins with the scriptures, I say.

Namaste Snip,

Thank you for your comment.

You say that misery comes from the perceived duality between you and a desirable object, i.e. a diamond. Yet would anyone say that "I am miserable because I see myself as different from a dark swamp or a condemned house?" Thinking in terms of duality or connectedness between you and the object still seems like being caught up in the world of objects.

I like to see connectedness in terms of the effect (prakriti) and the cause (purusha). The soul is of a similar nature of purusha, in that it is "never cut into pieces by any weapon, nor moistened by water, nor burned by fire, nor withered by the wind". Just as God employs the agency of maya to create yet is not touched by creation, the soul in contact with prakriti is never really affected by it. The perception of being affected comes about because prakriti is so dazzling.

Sankara explains that water affects things that are made up of parts by breaking them down. But the soul is not made up of parts, rather it is a part. This is how I would define a worshipable object/god - s/he or it is above being broken down or the sense of being broken down. Even if you say that you are one with the totality that includes prakriti, purusha and brahman, then you have to accept distinction from prakriti, as purusha may be called "connected" only as the cause.

[Onkara]

Namasté Rasa
Thank you for your interesting reply. I hope you allow me to add some thoughts to it also

Yet would anyone say that "I am miserable because I see myself as different from a dark swamp or a condemned house?" Thinking in terms of duality or connectedness between you and the object still seems like being caught up in the world of objects.

The thought "I am miserable" is the cause of the separation from objects on the mental plane (contrasted to physical plane). When I take my emotions as me or mine then I am identified with the gunas. I take the movement of the gunas to be me. Self-realisation does not imply that emotions and gunas will stop. As Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita:

No one for even a moment
Exists without doing action;
Each is forced to perform action–
E’en against his will–by gunas.1 (3.5)

Even the wise acts according
To his own nature: prakriti.
All follow their own prakriti;
So what will restraint accomplish? (3.33)

All actions, in all instances,
Are done by Prakriti’s gunas;
Those with ego-deluded mind
Imagine: “I am the doer.” (3.27)

So the gunas do not stop acting after Self-realisation, prakriti (and its constituents) cause even the wise to act. Why?

Because even the wise have form, they have a body. However they have reaslied their Self is beyond the duality of attraction and disgust. Be it a dark swamp or a King's palace, they know that truth and bliss reside only in their Self (atman).

[new_earth]

This is coming from someone a little new to Hinduism, so I most likely won't be quoting any scriptures. BUT - I will still share my answer to the original question.

To me, there is only One Supreme God. Actually, there is ONLY God. We are in God, and a spark of God is within all of us and everything. Everything comes from God, everything belongs to God. I do believe there is only one soul, only one body, only one mind. Our individual souls are microcosms of God's supreme soul, so together there is only one. The physical/material world is God's physical body, as we are parts of that one body. Since all material existence is temporary and eventually dies or is destroyed, so does God's physical body. But God's soul is eternal....as are our souls.

I am pretty sure most of you have heard of panentheism - which is what I'm trying to sum up here. God is in everything, everything is in God, yet God also has its distinct existence, not 'absorbed' by it's creation. Therefore it is possible to worship or love a personal, distinct Supreme God.

As for the 'images' of God in Hinduism, I see it this way - when I see a deity, avatar or demigod, etc., and see their name, such as "Lord Shiva" or "Lord Vishnu" or "Lord Ganesha", I think of them as "God AS Shiva", "God AS Vishnu", or "God AS Ganesha". Each image carries its own energies of God and can be concentrated upon or worshipped to connect with a certain feeling or aspect of the One God. I do think each image/aspect of God can take on its own personality to us as being real. But I would know behind it all, I am really just connecting with the One God.

I think each person may be attracted to a different image/energy/aspect of God, so that is why some feel more inclined to Shiva, Vishnu, Krishna, etc. I think in my case, I was originally 'attracted' to Vishnu and then discovered Krishna and things began to change in my life. For me, Krishna seemed to be the unifying element among all the others. Same for other religions as well - some feel inclined toward Jesus as their image of God, etc. But there is only ONE God....many names, many pictures, many energies.

[Eastern Mind]

Vannakkam new_earth: This is pretty much identical to how I view it, except I can replace the term 'God' with Siva, and get along fine. You have gained some wisdom along the path.

Where you are, there are lots of temples within a few hours. Do you frequent any, many, or none?

Aum Namasivaya

[kallol]

For me the Gods are like the different windows to a room. The windows are of different size, shape, colour, etc. And we all are looking from outside towards the room.

There are a few cases :

1. We get struck by the physical beauty of the window and get attached to it. So we do not get to understand what is beyond the window or what is in the room. This is mostly the lower strata and the bigger mass. This is the begining of devotion.

2. The next strata looks into the room from one window and develops certain impression / idea of the room. As similar are cases with other people who are using other windows, there are clashes on the nature and characteristics of the room. These are the people who have just started on the path of spirituality. This strata believes in monotheism.

3. The next strata looks into the room from all windows and try to form the idea of the nature of the room. This strata do not fight amongst themselves but still differ in the finer points. This strata believes in polytheism at the lowest and biswarupa at the highest.

4. The final strata had spent sufficient time on researching the nature of the room through the various windows and analysing the same. Thereafter he has found the complete nature of the room. Here there is only TRUTH and so there is no ambiguity and fight. This strata starts from biswarupa and ends in moksha.

Love and best wishes

[Jogesh]

Nice post new earth, my own views are much the same...

The Gods and Goddessess are manifestations of Brahman and aren't we lucky that we have the mantras and images that we can meditate upon and offer devotion to.

namaskar

[new_earth]

Thank you Eastern Mind and Jogesh.

Vannakkam new_earth: This is pretty much identical to how I view it, except I can replace the term 'God' with Siva, and get along fine. You have gained some wisdom along the path.

Where you are, there are lots of temples within a few hours. Do you frequent any, many, or none?

Aum Namasivaya

I have actually been trying to find one to go to, to at least to have the experience. I was actually going to post about this in the Mandir forum to see if anyone could tell me which one would be best, look for it in there soon once the post gets approved

[charlebs]

After studying the Upanishads, and after a long spiritual and philosophical journey, the Oneness of all and Brahman as the ultimate Self seems eminently reasonable to me. But I'm curious as to how others view the Gods? Is it beneficial to worship them? Where do they exist and do they interact with humanity? I recall that in the Upanishads it is mentioned a few times that the Gods do not like mortals to know about Brahman as it detracts from their worship.

Anyway, I know very little, and would like to hear about modern Hindu practices regarding the Gods.

Cheers!

I see the Gods as half Gods, humans who attained Godhood by realising themselves as for what they truly are. (a part of God)
as for the trinity, I believe they are the creative thought of God himself, the goodness he is and the destructive aspect of his conscience.

I also believe God is our collective conscience and that every bit of inspiration is presented to us by the endless mind of God.

[Vaishnava]

Through the grace of God have I understood the Upanishads to not support advaita.

"He who dwells in ALL beings, who is within them, whom all these beings do not know, for whom all these beings are bodies, who controls all beings form within, He is Your(atman's) atman, the inner ruler, the immortal" is God.

I cannot agree to ultimate one entity or unreality of the world either by perception, by experience or by making sense of the scriptures. World is temporary and hence is not real, and not because it is an illusion.

So, Vedas throw a lot of deities at you not excluding Vayu, Indra etc. But then why worship Shiva, Krishna etc., if specific deities or temples are not important. Why not worship our own created gods? So, I believe we have to turn to the same scriptures for finding out the truth. Vedas are complicated, Bhagavad Gita is not. He identifies Himself as the supreme and different from the souls. That is my view and goal also.