SmartSurat  #  Hinduism

Monotheism and panentheism

The nature of God in devotional Hinduism is very different from the monistic conception of a totally transcendent Absolute which we saw put forward by some of the major Upanisads. In devotional Hinduism there is an involvement with the deity and this is an involvemeric which includes the human emotion of love. In devotional Hinduism devotees have a personal focus for worship with deities which can be described and which are involved with creation in a personal way, helping humankind on the many paths to God realization. It is devotional Hinduism which pervades popular religion, providing many varied ways in which the divine can be approached. But since the Unmanifest source, Brahman, is manifest in a multiplicity of forms within the cosmos, this allows an individual to pour out his or her devotion to the aspect of deity which is dearer to that individual and which best suits his or her personality and level of consciousness. While it cannot be denied that caste background may have something to do with the choice, most individuals would have an ista-devata ' chosen deity ' - a personal deity who will be the main focus of devotion.      While the abundance of possible manifestations of Brahman has brought about what seems to be a polytheistic approach to the divine, few Hindus would agree with this term as an appropriate designation of the religion in any of its dimensions. Devotional Hinduism is monotheistic for two reasons. The first is that all deities are, ultimately, Brahman - they are all one - and, secondly, it is practically impossible for an individual to give equal attention to all deities; one will be the chosen object of devotion above all others in a monotheistic approach. Even though five deities are invoked in all Hindu worship - Ganesh, Surya, Siva, Devi, and Narayan (Visnu) - these pancayatana, as they are called, are a prelude to worship of the individual's chosen deity. To pour out devotion on a deity with total surrender and total love, one can really only have one deity, one's ista devata. But at the same time it is possible to recognize that the ista devata of another will be a different mainifestation of the divine. Even when the same deity as another is worshipped, it may well be a different form of thal deity:      The bhakta is almost always more particularly attached to a given form of the deity. He worships Visnu, but the Visnu of Srirangam rather than another, the linga of Siva, but that of Chidambaram or Kalahasti. Or he is a devotee of  Venkatesvara at Tirupati, of Virhoba at Panharpur . . . all the themes evoked around bhakti give rise to a divine form and a particular  feeling on the part of the worshipper.      This kind of focus on a particular aspect of the divine in devotional Hinduism has been appropriately termed ' informal monotheism ' by Lorenzen.      In contrast to the monism of the Upanisads, devotional Hinduism maintains a theistic stance of a personal relationship with the divine and a dualism between worshipper and deity. Bhakti opened up this kind of personal relationship, stressing the saguna, manifest, aspects of Brahman rather than Brahman as nirguna. The dualism between divine and human which is indicative of such devotional theism is retained at moksa: the individual atman does not become God but is a part of God. This makes each entity a fraction of the divine and there is much to suggest in devotional Hinduism that God is always greater than the totality of the cosmos. This is panentheism, and when all is drawn back to its unmanifest source, God remains, though all else ceases to exist. However, for the individual who can remain constantly and passsionately devoted to his or her chosen deity, surrendering the self to God in every way and in every moment, release from  samsara is achieved for the bliss of everlasting communion with God. The words of the poet Rabindranath Tagore depict admirably the communion of the soul with the divine when the self is surrendered:      I feel that all the stars shine in me. The world breaks into my tife like a Flood. The Flowers blossom in my body.All the youthfulness of land and water smokes like an incense in my heart; and the breath of all things plays on my thoughts as on a flute.