Topic 1.15.01 God. Superbeing

Topic 1.15.01 God. Superbeing. VERSION CONTROL: 1 March 2018

Generally, people think that in the religion of India there are many gods, resulting in a sort of polytheism. This is a thorough misconception.

The ‘many’ gods of Hinduism are the manifold levels through which the one Supreme Being manifests itself, in different densities of its descent, becoming more and more gross for the purpose of maintaining the relationship between the subject and the object. As there are several levels of descent, it appears as if there are numerous deities, each with varying characteristics, but they are all different levels of the one, supreme, connecting Principle, and symbolise different aspects of the single divine.

Deva, the shining one, can stand for the personal divine, such as the God Vishnu, Shiva, Indra, Agni, Brahma, Rudra, or the Goddesses Kali or Durga, or lower deities comparable to the angels in Christianity. In the latter sense, the devas are finite and unenlightened entities, though their life span far exceeds that of human beings (see Cosmology). Yet, the Hindu scriptures uniformly value human existence as higher than the existence of the inhabitants of the heavenly realms, lokas, because human life affords a unique intensity of experience that can lead directly to spiritual awakening or liberation, which is unavailable to the inhabitants of the heavenly realms.

Hinduism is well known for its astounding variety of metaphysical systems or theologies, which show considerable religious virtuosity and philosophical ingenuity. It is the heart that conquers, not the mind.

According to Hinduism, there are numerous popular deities, such as Vishnu, Shiva, Krishna, Rama, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Durga and Kali. These are worshipped in rural India, and popular imagination views them as superhuman personalities who populate the heavens, svarga, and who can be petitioned or even coerced through prayer and magical incantations to heed their requests.

The more literate sections of Hindu society, however, believe that beyond this pantheon of deities abides a single, ultimate Being.

In monotheistic, philosophical schools such as Vaishnavism, this ultimate reality is conceived as suprapersonal. Thus, God Vishnu is celebrated as the ‘supreme person’, purusha–uttama, beyond space and time. The pantheistic and panentheistic schools, again, envision the Ultimate reality to be impersonal, without qualities, nirguna, and indescribable. They call it the Absolute, Brahman, or the transcendental Self, Atman.

There are also philosophical schools such as classical samkhya, mimamsa, and nyaya that make no reference to a single ultimate Being, but propose a metaphysical plurality of countless transcendental selves, purusha. This is also the view taken by classical yoga, which postulates a stringent dualism between nature, prakriti and the conscious principle of existence called purusha. Like the nyaya school, it maintains that Ishvara, the Lord, is simply a special kind of transcendent Self. Probably because of its dualistic (or pluralistic) metaphysics and its attenuated concept of God, classical yoga has never become widely influential as a philosophical school, though Patanjali’s systematisation of the eightfold yogic path has served subsequent authorities as a model. The schools of pre-classical and post-classical yoga, without exception, subscribe to the non-dualistic, advaita metaphysics developed in the vedanta tradition.

Spirituality can be understood as experiences of the sacred, whereas religion is based on orthodox concepts (often rigidly enforced) about the sacred. While the word ‘religion’ originally meant that which ‘ binds’ together, we often question the value of bonds that have served to divide human beings from one another and from the natural world. Old communities based on orthodox meaning are falling apart as new ones form in search of today’s forms of spiritual communities. To shift one’s perspective from religion to spirituality means unraveling the very language and approach to the translation of ancient texts that dominated religious scholarship.

The Vedic seers cognised the cosmic drama of existence in terms of gods and goddesses. Most people easily relate to God through name and form, and in time, numerous vocabulary and mythology grew from those earlier concepts.

Following is an alphabetical list of religious terms.