Many people believe that Hindus worship many gods and therefore, are fundamentally opposed to the idea of there being One God. Umm… True. And false. I will try to explain.
Let us gather together a bunch of people. One loves money more than her life. Another is forgiving to the extreme. Still another lives off the anger that is within him. There is another who doesn’t want anything to do with the affairs of world and just wants to be left alone.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to imagine a scenario where these people might disagree with each other. Heck, I’ll bet some of them will come to blows as soon as we look the other way.
Now let’s say they all follow the same religion and know God to be either merciful, or war-like, or pro-prosperity, or something, or the other.
Assuming they are all believers, most of them will wonder if they belong in the company of the others. If God symbolises peace, the angry dude is a heretic. If God wants us to fight, the peace-lover is a heretic. No matter which way you slice it, someone or the other is always excluded.
It is impossible for the line connecting God and man to be a straight, strong, and unbroken one. God isn’t one thing. God is everything. Just like we are.
Hinduism allows every one of us to choose a god that suits him best. There are proactive gods and there are lazy gods. There are wise gods and there are fighter gods. Gods that are lusty and gods that spend entire lifetimes without touching a member of the opposite sex. An estimate says the Hindu pantheon consists of more than 33 crore gods, goddesses and other minor deities. That’s plenty of options!
Now to quote the Gita (and attempt to appear well-read):
O son of Pritha! Whoever worships me, in whatever way, I entertain them in that way. Everywhere, men follow along my path. — (Bhagwad Gita, Chapter 4, Verse 11)
Everyone, in one way or another, is following God’s way. Hence nobody is, so to speak, outside the fold. We are all, no matter how different from each other, in this together.
What Gita is saying here, is: “Everywhere, men follow along my path.”. Its not a choice. Christians and Muslims included. They just don’t know it. (ofcourse if you believe in Gita, which according to Gita is not a choice either, for Gita stands for “you do what you do(and if you accept it, you ll be happy)”) (( My interpretations ))
True. There is a book called “Am I a Hindu”. Its author Ed Viswanathan says that everyone is a Hindu. If you are a tolerant Muslim, or Christian or anything else, you are already a good Hindu.
I enjoyed your post, and I have a couple comments:
1) These Gods are many manifestations of one. (see Upanishads)
2) The analogy I like for the concept of each person approaching the God in their own way is that of the blind men and the elephant.
I am more confused
The entire thing is explained in the last but one paragraph of this post. Good.
But, I expected more!
Just trying to keep things brief and simple.
great post.
As a Christian who just married a Hindu, and we had a Hindu wedding ceremony, I really do appreciate what you have written here.
I do see many similarities between the Hindu way of life and Christianity.
Thank you,
Thomas
That’s nice to hear Thomas! The commonality is obvious. Hinduism has always accepted all religions as true. Wish you a happy married life.
hi, i would like to know why though that some hindus choose different gods, for their own particular reasons please…….im still not sure why
Am i an Hindu, if i create my own god? Hope Hinduism allows that too
Oh absolutely. It’s all open source.
LOL. Forking is allowed then
Its for the knowleadge of all people.
Hinduism is a not a religion. Its a proven strategy to god with a mindset of salvation.
People who takes the quotes from Bhagavat Gita and Upanishad should bear in the mind that demi gods or gods we are specifying in hindu mythologies are those who lived much before the current civilization. There is no usage called Gods. Use logic. Since human being is the only one group in this world who aquired the knowleadge to communicate to each other, we advertly choose gods and goddess in our own form. Its truely opportunisum. Nothing other than that.
For reference, please refer Chapter 49/47 version 3 & 9 in Rig veda. Its saying. Those who follow or worship material things(Cow,goat,cat,snake,elephant,lion or any dieties) will be in deaper darkness soon.
Now come to bhagavat gita. Refer Chapter 7.. Ghaana vingana yogam….
Sloga.. Avyato vakthimanamane manyanthe mamabudhaye……
Its saying that God has no image and those who believe in 10 incarnation of Vishnu as read god is a fool whose wisdom is carried away.
Just one question Why in Hindu mythology, puran etc we find references of only Asia at max why there is no mention of America, Australia and other parts of the world ??? How come then we call that Hindu’s knew all???
Who says Hindus know all? That’s simply not true. Nobody knows all. Swami Vivekananda often said two things: All religions are true; and, No religion is perfect. Thet goes for Hinduism also.
Having said that, I would make a few guesses (since i was not around when the original ancient books were written.
Religion is as much history as it is faith. Hinduism in its current form is the result of millennia of history. Because of this massive time lag, a lot of things that were genuine information back then, have turned into symbols. For example, horses came to India from Iran, and yet, are an essential element of our myth. India, like Hinduism has always assimilated influences from all over.
So any mention of foreign lands is likely to have disappeared into our regular myth and history. You might be looking at it but won’t know that it is a foreign object that is being talked about.
The list of such things is endless.
In addition, the Vedic tradition, even by conservative estimates, stretches back to at least 1800 BC. A lot of countries as we know tham now, simply did not exist back then.