SmartSurat  #  Hinduism

The Hindu Concept of God

Although many people associate Hinduism with a multiplicity of Gods, in fact there is only one supreme Absolute, so absolute that we could not even use the term god to depict it. This Absolute is called Brahman and everything in life, whether living or not comes from Brahman. Every Creature, every plant, every individual, every stone, every tree - everything in existence - has its source as Brahman. This means that Brahman is in things and each thing is a part of Brahman; this is called pantheism ( Pan ' all ' , theism ' of God ' ). Because Brahman is in all things, all things can be regarded as sacred in their essence and Hindus call this essence atman. This is why we cannot call Brahman God, because if we did, we would be making God male rather than female. God would then be describable and this would limit the concept of an Absolute. Brahman, then, cannot be described by humankind in any way: it is totally beyond anything that humankind can conceive of and is nirakara ' without form '. However,because Brahman is in all things in the cosmos it can be manifest in a myriad of forms and it is in this way that Brahman can also be seen in the many Gods and Goddesses of Hinduism as sakara ' with form ' .        Although there are many manifestations of Brahman in the forms of deities each deity is really an aspect of Brahman or, ultimately, Brahman itself And since Brahman is in all things then there is no reason why Brahman cannot be manifest in feminine forms as well as masculine ones. The relationship between the many manifest deities and the Unmanifest Brahman is rather like that between the sun and its rays. We can't experience the sun itself but we can experience its rays and the qualities which those rays have. And although the sun's rays are many, ultimately, there is only one source, one sun. So the Gods and Goddesses of Hinduism amount to thousands, all representing the many aspects of Brahman. The Hindu deities will be examined in more detail below, but here three major deities need to be mentioned : Visnu, Siva and the mother Goddess. Worshippers of Visnu are called Vaisnavites. Visnu represents Brahman as the sustainer of the universe. He is an important deity because whenever the world becomes too evil Visnu is said to incarnate himself on earth to restore good. Two of the most important incarnations of Visnu on earth are in his form as Ram and in his form as Krisna: many Vaisnavites in particular prefer to worship Brahman in such incarnate form rather than Visnu. The other major deity is Siva who represents the force of dissolution in the universe. Those who worship Siva are known as Saivites. Siva represents the more awe-inspiring aspects of Brahman, those more closely associated with death and destruction, yet Siva balances all the opposites in life, good and bad, light and dark, evolution and devolution, life and death and so on : He is a more difficult deity to understand. The Mother Goddess takes many forms. She is known as the sakti energy in life. In fact, each male deity like Visnu or Siva has its sakti energy its female energy which is itself a deity. So the female sakti of Visnu is the Goddess Laksmi, the Goddess responsible for good fortune, while the sakti energy of Siva takes many forms: these can be violent, like the Goddesses Durga and Kali, or mild like Uma and Parvati. Siva will always have opposites in his own form and therefore in his female sakti forms too.