Re: The concept of God or Gods?
Originally Posted by
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.
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.
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http://shivsomashekhar.wordpress.com/category/history/
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