The literal meaning of monotheism, namely, that God is one and not many does not interest me.
What bothers me is the monotheism known to history Christianity and Islam, religions which have prompted aggression, massacres, plunder, pillage, enslavement and the rest. Histories of Christianity and Islam tell the full story. Honest gangster do all this in a straightforward manner, "I want your land, your wealth, your women and children and you yourself as my slaves. Surrender or I will kill you." Dishonest gangsters have done the same in the name of the 'only true God'. God is not needed by them except as an alibi. Communists have done the same in the name of History, and the Nazis in the name of the Master Race.
Christianity and Islam do not need any supernatural scaffolding for doing what they have been doing. The mainstay of their monotheism is gross materialism.
I do not regard Christianity and Islam as semitic. The semites of west Asia were Pagans with pluralistic religious traditions before the Biblical God appeared on the scene. I, therefore, call both Christianity and Islam the Biblical creeds. Both of them have their source in the Bible.
And as I do not view them as religions at all, I refuse to compare them with Hinduism. I have found it quite apt to compare Christianity and Islam with Communism and Nazism.
'Paganism' was a term of contempt invented by Christianity for people in the countryside who lived close to and in harmony with Nature, and whose ways of worship were spontaneous as opposed to the contrived though-categories constructed by Christianity's city-based manipulators of human minds.
In due course, the term was extended to cover all spiritually spontaneous culture of the world - Greek, Roman, Iranian, Indian, Chinese, native American.
It became a respectable term for those who revolted against Christianity in the modern West. But it has yet to recover its spiritual dimension which Christianity had eclipsed. For me, Hinduism preserves ancient Paganism in all its dimensions. In that sense, I am a Pagan.
The term "Polytheism' comes from Biblical discourse, which has the term 'theism' as its starting point. I have no use for these terms. They create confusion.
I dwell in a different universe of discourse which starts with 'know thyself' and ends with the discovery, 'thou art that'.
I have no use for God. In fact, the very word stinks in my nostrils. This word abounds in the Bible and the Quran, and has been responsible for the greatest crimes in human history.
On the other hand, saints who have used this word in a spiritually wholesome sense have seldom warned us against its sinister use; most of the time they have been confused by the criminal use of this word, and have confused others. I do not feel the same way about the word 'goddess' because the monotheist who happen to be male chauvinists, have not used this word for their purposes.
In fact, the only thing which softens me towards Catholicism is the figure of the Virgin Mother even though theology has not permitted her to soar up to her highest heights.
Having been a student of Hinduism, I find that our tradition knows no God or Goddess as the creator and controller of the Cosmos.
The Vedas know no god or goddess in that sense, nor the Upanishads, nor the six systems of philosophy, nor Buddhism, nor Jainism. It is the Puranas which speaks for the first time of a paramatman (Highest Self), or a purushottama (Highest Persona). But that is not the extra-cosmic and blood-thirsty tyrant of the Bible and the Quran.
We do have in Hinduism the concept of ishtadeva, the highest symbol of a person's spiritual aspiration.
In that sense, I am devoted to Sri Krishna as he figures in the Mahabharata, and the Goddess Durga, as she reveals herself in the Devi-Bhagvata Purana. I feel free and shed all fear when I meditate on them.
They promise to clean up the dross that I carry within me.
They prepare me for battle against forces of darkness and destruction.
Extracts of Sh Sita ram goel's views
What bothers me is the monotheism known to history Christianity and Islam, religions which have prompted aggression, massacres, plunder, pillage, enslavement and the rest. Histories of Christianity and Islam tell the full story. Honest gangster do all this in a straightforward manner, "I want your land, your wealth, your women and children and you yourself as my slaves. Surrender or I will kill you." Dishonest gangsters have done the same in the name of the 'only true God'. God is not needed by them except as an alibi. Communists have done the same in the name of History, and the Nazis in the name of the Master Race.
Christianity and Islam do not need any supernatural scaffolding for doing what they have been doing. The mainstay of their monotheism is gross materialism.
I do not regard Christianity and Islam as semitic. The semites of west Asia were Pagans with pluralistic religious traditions before the Biblical God appeared on the scene. I, therefore, call both Christianity and Islam the Biblical creeds. Both of them have their source in the Bible.
And as I do not view them as religions at all, I refuse to compare them with Hinduism. I have found it quite apt to compare Christianity and Islam with Communism and Nazism.
'Paganism' was a term of contempt invented by Christianity for people in the countryside who lived close to and in harmony with Nature, and whose ways of worship were spontaneous as opposed to the contrived though-categories constructed by Christianity's city-based manipulators of human minds.
In due course, the term was extended to cover all spiritually spontaneous culture of the world - Greek, Roman, Iranian, Indian, Chinese, native American.
It became a respectable term for those who revolted against Christianity in the modern West. But it has yet to recover its spiritual dimension which Christianity had eclipsed. For me, Hinduism preserves ancient Paganism in all its dimensions. In that sense, I am a Pagan.
The term "Polytheism' comes from Biblical discourse, which has the term 'theism' as its starting point. I have no use for these terms. They create confusion.
I dwell in a different universe of discourse which starts with 'know thyself' and ends with the discovery, 'thou art that'.
I have no use for God. In fact, the very word stinks in my nostrils. This word abounds in the Bible and the Quran, and has been responsible for the greatest crimes in human history.
On the other hand, saints who have used this word in a spiritually wholesome sense have seldom warned us against its sinister use; most of the time they have been confused by the criminal use of this word, and have confused others. I do not feel the same way about the word 'goddess' because the monotheist who happen to be male chauvinists, have not used this word for their purposes.
In fact, the only thing which softens me towards Catholicism is the figure of the Virgin Mother even though theology has not permitted her to soar up to her highest heights.
Having been a student of Hinduism, I find that our tradition knows no God or Goddess as the creator and controller of the Cosmos.
The Vedas know no god or goddess in that sense, nor the Upanishads, nor the six systems of philosophy, nor Buddhism, nor Jainism. It is the Puranas which speaks for the first time of a paramatman (Highest Self), or a purushottama (Highest Persona). But that is not the extra-cosmic and blood-thirsty tyrant of the Bible and the Quran.
We do have in Hinduism the concept of ishtadeva, the highest symbol of a person's spiritual aspiration.
In that sense, I am devoted to Sri Krishna as he figures in the Mahabharata, and the Goddess Durga, as she reveals herself in the Devi-Bhagvata Purana. I feel free and shed all fear when I meditate on them.
They promise to clean up the dross that I carry within me.
They prepare me for battle against forces of darkness and destruction.
Extracts of Sh Sita ram goel's views
No comments:
Post a Comment