Deities in different religions!

[Guest guest]

Namaste,

 

A fantastic question and one that downplays the importance of religion and rituals in the minds of intelligent and rational people! Hence a very important question to answer.. To answer it, I will go back to the analogy I gave just a few days back:

 

/message/1673 (Why rituals)

 

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The child is taught by parents to say things like "thank you" and "sorry" in different situations. I compared it to engaging in rituals and repeating mantras without understanding. I said that the child slowly understands the true meaning with experience and feels the emotions represented by those words when saying them. I compared it to a sadhaka experiencing spiritual truths represented by the rituals as he gains experience and becomes more ready.

 

Now, think about this. Parents speaking different languages teach different words to the child. A parent speaking English may teach "I am sorry". A parent speaking Hindi may teach "mujhe maaf keejiye". Another Hindi speaking person may teach "mujhe maaf karo". A parent speaking Telugu may teach "nannu kshaminchandi". Another Telugu speaking person may teach "nannu kshaminchu". And so on. The words are different. But they represent the same thought and emotion.

 

Actually, at one level, the meaning is slightly different in each case, depending on the peculiarities and cultural context of the language used. For example, the English expression has "I" as the subject and one is talking about how one feels. The Hindi and Telugu expressions have the other person as the subject and asking him to forgive. The amount of respect shown is different in different expressions. Thus, the exact meaning is slightly different. Thus, children speaking different languages may visualize something slightly different as their understanding of the languages improves. However, these differences are minor. As one delves deeper, the basic emotions associated with these different expressions is the same in different languages and one will feel those emotions with compassion as one masters the language.

 

Similarly, deities, rituals and mantras used in different religious traditions may be different, but they may represent the same divine energy and the same spiritual experiences. Just as the immeidate visualization of an expression in the mind of a child may change based on cultural context and grammar that one is exposed to, the immeidate imagination of a deity's gross/external form in the mind of a sadhaka may change based on the religious paradigms and spirutal context that one is exposed to. However, these differences are minor. As one delves deeper, the basic energies and experiences represented by various deities and rituals are the same in different religious traditions and one will experience the same spiritual truths as one masters one's path.

 

No wonder Rigveda says "ekam sat vipraa bahudhaa vadanti" (Truth is One, but the learned say it differently).

 

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One language may have a lot of different words for an object with slight variation whereas another language may have fewer words. As an example, a language spoken near equator may have a single word for "snow", "ice", "dew", "mist" etc, whereas English has so many words. Native language of Alaskans, who live in snow and ice most of the year, has many more words than English for slightly different kinds of snow, whereas English calls all of them as "snow".

 

Similarly, religious traditions that explored slightly different kinds of the same divine energy may have personified those energies as different deities. So some religions may have more deities than some other religions. Some religions may have a lot of deities for different variations of a similar purpose, whereas another religion may have only one deity.

 

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If communication can be internalized and we can communicate with our emotions, we do not need language and we will all be on the same page always. But we cannot communicate with our internal emotions and need an external method. So language is needed. But language can divide.

 

Similarly, spiritual truths are internal (like our emotions). In order to express them and transmit them to others, we need deities, mantras, rituals and religion. But religion can divide.

 

One child may say "I am sorry" and another may say another expression meaning the same thing and they may argue who is right. One may say "my father said this is correct" and another may say "my mother said this is correct" and they may fight on who is correct. People fighting over whose religion is superior and trying to "convert" others are like such children. Unfortunately, my "child and language" analogy is too mild in this area and the fights between religions have been far worse than two children arguing about their language. Countless people have been murdered in the name of religion.

 

Instead of arguing which expression is correct and finding fault with others, children learning should focus on the true meaning of what they saying and try to understand what exactly their expression means and feel the correct emotions when they say things. Similarly, instead of fighting with others on religion, one should try to understand one's own religion better and experience the spiritual truths represented in that religion.

 

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One may think there is a Christian god, an Islamic god, a Hindu god etc and they are responsible for respective religions and societies. That is not true.

 

If one believes that there is a supreme deity (whatever the name you use to describe) who creates all beings, then one has to realize that Vyasa, Buddha, Christ, Propher Mohammed and Mahavira were sent to this earth by that same supreme deity and different religions came into being only because that supreme deity willed so! Each religion serves a useful purpose at a given place and a time. When a religion's time is up, it goes.

 

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Some may say that external forms of deities who personify different aspects of divine energy running the universe are a creation of the mind. However, they are not a creation of the current state of mind. Mind has accumulated many layers of conditioning though many lives. Thus, one may not have ever seen or thought about or imagined a specific form of a deity in this life, but may have a vision of that form, on account of conditioning accumulated through many lives. An example is the boy mentioned in the following message:

 

/message/761

 

He had not read about some of the avataras of Vishnu he saw above the fire. But he saw them and could describe them. This is because those forms represent a personification of a certain energy and his mind imagined that energy in that form in a previous life. The memory stayed with the mind (though not consciously) and it can come back anytime. So, though he did not know about that form, that form appeared before him.

 

Swami Vivekananda famously said (paraphrased), "a human being imagines god as a super human being with many hands and heads. If a buffalo imagines god, it may imagine god as a super buffalo with many horns". Though he is right in a sense, it is misleading too. It may incorrectly trivialize external forms. Though external forms are a work of the mind, that does not make them unimportant.

 

Until one learns how to feel sorry and show that feeling, saying "I am sorry" as a ritual is an important habit. Not teaching a child words because he cannot anyway understand their correct meaning is wrong. The child should be taught even if he does not understand. He will understand the true meaning later Similarly, though the energy represented by a form is more basic than a specific external form associated with that energy, many people will reach that energy only by imagining that form and worshipping that form. So, if one's mind tends to imagine a form, one should imagine the form and worship that form.

 

Though we say that forms of deities and mystical experiences are a creation of mind, that is in a vedantic sense, i.e. the entire manifested universe is a creation of the mind (over many lives). Only Brahman is real and not created by the mind. Everything else is a creation of the mind over the time. If we say that a form of a deity or an experience is an imagination of the mind, it does not mean it is a hallucination. Mind is connected to its field of experience. Various minds in its field of experience are connected to it. For example, the experience described in the following message was independently "observed" by two people. Human mind can imagine things and hallucinate, but two minds observing the same thing is different from a typical hallucination:

 

/message/951

 

Most divine forms and divine experiences chronicled in sacred texts of various religions have been independently experienced by multiple people.

 

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When someone looks sad, one person may say "he is sad". Another person may say "woh dukhi hai". Another person may say "vaadu baadha padutunnaadu". Similarly, when a divine energy is present in a place, one may perceive the energy as deity X and another may perceive it as a deity Y. Just as the expression one uses to describe the feeling one perceives is based on the language one knows, similarly the form mentioned by one to describe the enegy one perceives depends on the conditioning of one's mind and the religious tradition one is exposed to.

 

I know one person who does Chandi homam. When he finishes the homam, he calls back the Divine Mother into his heart by showing the fire with his hands and motioning the hands towards his heart (with eyes closed). When he does it, he just perceives a nice energy around him and feels peaceful and happy. When he was doing this oneday, a gentleman was visiting and sitting right behind him. His eyes were closed and he was meditating. When the above happened, he was baffled and opened his eyes to see what was going on. He had a vision of a dark goddess who was jumping towards him along with a big pile of kumkum (vermillion powder) all around Her. He was overwhelmed by the vision and opened his eyes. But the person who did homam perceived only some nice energy and no specific form. Thus, the same energy may be perceived by different people in a different form. One person may perceive only some energy and another may perceive a specific form. Yet another may perceive a different form. The exact perception is based on the conditioning of the mind. But the energy itself is uniform, though the form is not.

 

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I have covered various aspects related to this topic. I will stop now. Best regards,NarasimhaDo a Short Homam Yourself: http://www.VedicAstrologer.org/homamDo Pitri Tarpanas Yourself: http://www.VedicAstrologer.org/tarpanaSpirituality: Free Jyotish lessons (MP3): http://vedicastro.home.comcast.netFree Jyotish software (Windows): http://www.VedicAstrologer.orgSri Jagannath Centre (SJC) website: http://www.SriJagannath.org - "rajarshi14" <rajarshi14Sunday, April 19, 2009 1:26 AM Deities > Namaste>> Just a curious thought.>> We in Hinduism have a certain set of deities. In history we see that every > ancient culture had their own set of deities and rituals etc etc.>> If deities are not universal and rather culture specific, are they a > creation of the people? But if they are a creation of the people, how do > they have such universal abilities/powers and also their avatarts. We have > in Sanatana Dharma many instances of amsa avatars of various deities > taking birth.>> What happens to the deities of a certain culture, once the culture has > died and there is no one to worship that deity? And why did not the > ancient deities of different cultures protect those cultures from > anihilation?>> Any thoughts on this would be interesting.>> -Regards> Rajarshi