The concept of God or Gods?

[mradam83]

I'm very clueless, so my apologies in advance.

One thing I'm confused on is the concept of god.

I currently consider myself an Atheist in the sense that I don't believe in a personal and conscious god in the way Abrahamic religions describe.

However, I am spiritual in many ways and I see Brahman as being very likely.

What is Brahman essentially - is Brahman everything ie the cosmos and everything in it?

Are the various other gods such as Shiva, Kali, Lakshmi etc all parts of Brahman?

The way I am trying to fathom it, is that the different gods are either taken literally Or as metaphorical symbolising parts of existence of a whole. Is that train of thought accurate or way off?

Thank you and Namaste.

[wundermonk]

What is Brahman essentially - is Brahman everything ie the cosmos and everything in it?

The relationship of Brahman with the universe is different in different philosophies of Hinduism.

On the one hand you have pure theistic schools like Nyaya and Dvaita which conceive of Brahman as something completely different from this universe and the sentient beings within it. God has been manifesting and dissolving these entities from time immemorial and will continue to do so forever.

OTOH, you have monist philosophies like Advaita. Since the only ultimately reality is Brahman, everything IS Brahman. That we perceive multiplicity and duality are due to our ignorance [Maya/Avidya].

Are the various other gods such as Shiva, Kali, Lakshmi etc all parts of Brahman?

Depending on the type of Hindu you speak to, Shiva, Kali or Lakshmi are Brahman itself.

Others take a view that you have pointed out and say that all spiritually uplifting deities are but different aspects of one Brahman. There really is no limit on Brahman and if an earnest devotee worships one form of Brahman (say Shiva) will Brahman not be pleased? So goes the thinking.

The way I am trying to fathom it, is that the different gods are either taken literally Or as metaphorical symbolising parts of existence of a whole. Is that train of thought accurate or way off?

Dvaita, for e.g., is a realist school and believes that Brahma (not Brahman), Lakshmi, etc. are literally Gods. They are much highly evolved souls of previous cycles. The life of Brahma is much longer than us human souls and there is a calculation of Brahma years etc. Essentially, all these Gods will dissolve and Brahman will constitute a new soul to the role of Brahma in the next cycle.

Thank you and Namaste.

Welcome and Namaste!

[mradam83]

Excellent, thank you for that answer as it cleared up a lot.

Do you particularly subscribe to any one school of thought about gods yourself or is it a mixture of different parts?

Namaste.

[Shuddhasattva]

Namaste

Please keep in mind that there is no unified perspective on this question in the Sanatana Dharma. In fact, it is a subject of much debate between the different sects, to little fruit.

That said...

Brahman is roughly equivalent to the Western philosophical concept of panentheism (as contrasted with pantheism). Pantheism = god is everything. Panentheism = God pervades/is everything, yet is also beyond - transcendent).

The material universe, including space and time, are Brahman, but Brahman is more than the material universe.

Now let's look at the deities...

Firstly, we must recognize that Hindu theology has changed a great deal over the past 3000~ years. The Vedas, the oldest written scriptures were, before being committed to writing, oral traditions. We cannot date them.

The Rg Veda, the eldest, describes 33 major gods - Indra, Prajapati, 8 Vasus, 11 Rudras and 12 Adityas.

The gods are generally held to be manifestations of Brahman; anthropomorphized representations of natural forces though themselves beings in their own right as well.

The Vedas are composed of 4 parts:

• Samhitas - this is the main body, consisting of mantras/hymns. The other three are commentatorial additions which came later.
• Brahmanas - Associated with a particular school of Vedic study (shakha), these commentaries were mainly focused on ritual, but also included philosophy and information about the Gods.
• Aranyakas - These are essentially specialized brahmanas regarding rituals that couldn't be performed within the confines of civilization - Aranyaka means 'from the wilderness.' Also associated with particular shakhas.
• Upanishads - philosophical essence of the Vedas, nominally associated with particular shakhas but practically more universally accessible.

The Upanishads laid the groundwork for Vedanta to emerge. Vedanta means the 'goal of the vedas.' It is in the Upanishads that we first see Vedanta, and the Vedantic theology.

For a variety of reasons, the gods worshiped by Hindus nowadays are not Vedic gods, but Vedantic ones, though often drawn from aspects of Vedic gods. Vishnu of Vedanta bears as much or more resemblance to Varuna of the Vedas than the Vishnu of the Vedas, although there are some passages in the Vedas regarding Vishnu which presage his current status. Shiva is present in a prototypical form in the Vedas as Rudra(s). Brahma as Prajapati.

The Upanishads gave birth to the Vedanta-sutras. This is the age of the darshanas (philosophical views, of which there are considered to be six which are astika - in line with the vedas. Others, such as Buddhism and Jainism, are nastika - out of line with the Vedas, and therefore out of the fold of the Sanatana Dharma).

These six are:

• Mimamsa - Focus on ritual and orthodoxy, anti-mystical
• Vedanta - Focus on philosophical essence and mysticism
• Samkhya - Dualistic philosophy of purusha and prakriti
• Yoga - Building upon the samkhya philosophy into a system of practice, adding an additional tattva (Ishvara)
• Nyaya - Logic
• Vaishesika - Atomism

These six are no longer distinct as separate schools of thought. Vedanta subsumed within itself the other 5.

Vedanta itself broke down into various sects based on:

• which deity was to be regarded as Supreme, ie the full manifestation of Brahman
• which philosophy was to be followed (monistic or dualistic, and variations thereof)

I felt that explaining all of this was necessary to properly contextualize. Depending on which school of Vedanta one subscribes to - the Gods can be said to be real individuals, with lineage, etc., from a literal reading, or as representations of principles, aspects of the Universal Self - ie, raw divinity clothed in culturally appropriate, anthropomorphized form so that the Self is revealed to the self. A range of other interpretations between these poles are also present.

I personally believe that the Gods are 'real' entities who are aspects of the partite reality of Brahman - this or that principle - all deities are equally Nirguna Brahman (the Unmanifest Transcendent), with the primordial pair (Shiva & Shakti, Radha & Krishna, Vishnu & Lakshmi, etc.) being Saguna Brahman (full manifestation of Brahman).

A view that may be helpful to you is the practical nature of deity worship. When one worships a deity, one is cultivating the qualities of that deity, particularly when this worship becomes internal, and non-dual in nature - that is to say, one identified with the deity as oneself, or as a vital part of oneself. This is one of the primary reasons given by Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita as to why worship of a personalized God is more expedient than worship of the impersonal absolute. But the two need not be a contradiction at all. Realization of Saguna Brahman is also realization of Nirguna Brahman - the two being only semantic distinctions for sake of explication. Brahman is partless.

In some of the mystical traditions of Vedanta, the body itself is seen as a microcosmic reflection of the universe, with the body housing in its subtle forms constellations of deities. The deities, collectively, compose the Self, representing its various parts though its ultimate nature is partless.

This is the view I personally adhere to.

I hope this is helpful to you. If you would like more information on any of these points, or clarification, please do not hesitate to ask. There are many on this forum more knowledgeable than I.

Namaste

[wundermonk]

Do you particularly subscribe to any one school of thought about gods yourself or is it a mixture of different parts?

Me personally? I am more a philosophical Hindu rather than a theological Hindu, if that differentiation makes sense.

The point is that whether one God exists or multiple Gods exist or one God is subservient to another God, whether that one God is Brahma or Shiva or Vishnu or whether these Gods are real or imagined is completely irrelevant to me.

The role of religion is that it should encourage spiritual progress and inner peace. Dharmic religions score high on this front via the freedom they provide to devotees, their philosophy and their vast amount of sometimes contradictory scriptures. Different strokes for different folks. I will NOT impose my perception of the Divine on the other.

Hence, I am philosophically a Hindu.

[shiv.somashekhar]

I'm very clueless, so my apologies in advance.

One thing I'm confused on is the concept of god.

I currently consider myself an Atheist in the sense that I don't believe in a personal and conscious god in the way Abrahamic religions describe.

However, I am spiritual in many ways and I see Brahman as being very likely.

What is Brahman essentially - is Brahman everything ie the cosmos and everything in it?

Are the various other gods such as Shiva, Kali, Lakshmi etc all parts of Brahman?

The way I am trying to fathom it, is that the different gods are either taken literally Or as metaphorical symbolising parts of existence of a whole. Is that train of thought accurate or way off?

Thank you and Namaste.

The definition of Brahman will depend on who you ask. While on the outside, Hinduism may appear to be one homogenous religion, that is not the case. Hinduism consists of countless, varied and contradictory belief systems. There are innumerable scrptures and quite often, the same scriptural text is interpreted in wildly different ways by different groups.

The most common definition of Brahman is derived from the Advaita school, but it would be incorrect to take it as the standard Hindu definition.

[devotee]

Namaste mradamas,

As you are an atheist, it would be hard for you to accept a God unless that conforms to scientific logical tests. I will give you Advaita's point of view which appears to me the most logical explanation of everything that Is :

a) Everything is nothing but Consciousness. This "everything" includes even the space and even anything which is unmanifest. If you critically examine how even the tiny particles in the atomic structure "know" how to behave as per laws of the universe, you will have to agree that these seemingly non-living things too are not without consciousness.

b) The Reality which is Consciousness, has four different states. There are two states where it appears as "many" i.e. our manifest universe and the subtle world before birth and after death. We belong to these states (actulaly the first waking state) There is a state which is the controller, origin and end of the first two states. This state is God-state and is known by various names with form and even without form by people of various paths.

c) There is fourth state of the reality which is the origin and end of the three states described above. This state is beyond all mental concepts but this is the real "reality". The first three states appear and disappear on the fourth like waves on the sea or the pictures on cinema-screen due to action of MAyA (illusory power of Brahman). This state is known as Turiya and is the witness to all the three states all the time.

d) All of the above are nothing but "AUM" (Sound) which has been heard by the Yogis at higher spiritual level when the heart-chakra is activated. Anyone can hear it.

e) Illusory nature of existence can be easily verified if we see the things as we see them and as they really are e.g. A wall of stone appears completely solid to us but if you see the atomic structure, you find that it is almost emty space. So, what actually is space is seen as solid wall ! This is only one type of wrong perception. In fact everything that we see, taste, touch, hear is not exactly the same as we perceive them.

Your answer is at b) alone but to make it clear, I had to clarify other things which are related. I hope it helps.

OM

[mradam83]

Wow!

Shuddhasattva, Devotee and Wundermonk - thank you.

Shuddhasattva, The contextualising was really helpful for me - it makes me appreciate just how vast what the west calls Hinduism ( Is that word wrong to use by the way - is it more apt to use Sanatana Dharm?) and how important the Vedas are - I shall now go and purchase a copy.

Thank you Wundermonk for trying to sum up what is surely an amazing and vast thing. Can I ask, when you first started your quest for knowledge were you confused at all but have a general idea? Or were you generally sure but needed clarification?

Thank you Devotee for the post - When I say Atheist, I mean Atheist in the sense of rejecting the Abrahamic and Judeo Christian concept of deity. I'm much more open to the Dharmic way, and I really think that I like the way Brahman and the Triumverti (I hope that's right?) Of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva sum up a very valid way of Birth, Life and Death - all valid and sound concepts as I see it.

Thank you again, I really appreciate it.

Namaste.

[kallol]

As Devoteeji has stated, for an aethist it would be better to go in scientific logical way.

If you take all physical matters are out of energy (as of now we believe that only), then this energy (energy and physical matter form the gross matter) is also out of subtle matters. Minds, Intellect and others are part of these subtle matter.

Subtle matters cannot be proven by gross matter and 2 are different existence level.

The subtle matter is out of the ultimate or purest form i.e. consciousness. This conscousness is attributeless, changless and permanent.

Others are because of it. Again others are temporary in attributes. In permanent state the others merge into the conciousness.

The whole system is brahman. All the three states are simulteneously present. Human have physical, subtle matter and conscousness. Same is with all living and non living matter.

[mradam83]

As Devoteeji has stated, for an aethist it would be better to go in scientific logical way.

If you take all physical matters are out of energy (as of now we believe that only), then this energy (energy and physical matter form the gross matter) is also out of subtle matters. Minds, Intellect and others are part of these subtle matter.

Subtle matters cannot be proven by gross matter and 2 are different existence level.

The subtle matter is out of the ultimate or purest form i.e. consciousness. This conscousness is attributeless, changless and permanent.

Others are because of it. Again others are temporary in attributes. In permanent state the others merge into the conciousness.

The whole system is brahman. All the three states are simulteneously present. Human have physical, subtle matter and conscousness. Same is with all living and non living matter.

I think this has an awful lot of relevance to my scientific beliefs and I think the more I look into everything, this will be the route I reckon I'll proceed down. I've always held the belief that we're part of the same matter that makes up the sun, moon, plants, animals etc.

I also do believe that the human body has energy that when we die will go on and become parts of other beings and things too so I suppose this is a building block for looking into more.