Monotheism

Monotheism.

From SREE SAJJANA-TOSHANI
THE HARMONIST
OCTOBER, 1928

It is a common belief prevalent among the uninformed circles that the Vedantins are all monotheists, but the critics can demarcate the line of distinction between monotheistic vedantins and henotheistic vedantins. Some are apt to confound that the henotheistic thought of Impersonality of Godhead has created the view of personal Godhead. They are surely mistaken. Monotheism strictly dismisses the idea of henotheistic view of different mundane figures of the Impersonality, the subjective existence of which is no other thing than symbolisation of the Infinite Impersonality within the cavity of human senses by material components. The henotheistic idea has misguided the true conception of monotheism which has to establish the Unity and Personality of Godhead together not in the mundane but in transcendental sphere whereas, the Impersonalists differ from the former by assuming the idea of abstraction from concrete matter. This particular turn of mind of the latter misunderstands the true figure of Godhead beyond phenomena and wants to accommodate the figure of the Absolute Truth into something inconceivable and indistinct. The distinctive monism has shown clearly that the indistinctive nature of concocting the subjective existence of the Personal Godhead is rash and foolish.

The impersonal idea of monism being a part and parcel of the mundane idea of unending Space and Time has no locus standi when numerical difference is not welcome and by his meddling with numerical difference, he has forfeited the chair of his unalloyed monism. The supreme fountain-head has got the potency of manifesting His Nature in temporal and perpetual existences. The indistinctive view of monism has explained the phenomena in non-realistic Idealism. In the Chicago Parliament of Religions held a few years ago one henotheistic calling himself a pioneer of Hindu Preachers had cut a good figure which had been appreciated by the then congregational community. This propagation work on the opposite side of the globe has decidedly got a footing in everyday talk of India’s advancement in philosophic speculation. But the idea of monism has been distorted to some extent by the said messenger of Bengal. He had not done full justice to the theory of inconceivable simultaneous difference and non-difference advanced by the Supreme Lord Sree Chaitanya Dev whose line of interpretation is quite contrary to the alleged ideas of the indefinite absolute school that start their arguments from sensuous philosophical speculations. The preacher of unalloyed absolute monotheism had a different line of progress from what is maintained by the sensuous argumentators. His Epistemology has been traced to Vedic source instead of free admission of challenging everything, be it Absolute or flickering. Many a monist under the shelter of henotheism has more or less exposed himself to a point which may pass as ‘polytheism’, the henotheists though declaring themselves to be monotheists in their final reach.

Now what did the henotheist preacher alleging himself to be a monotheist give which was considered by the Chicago Assembly as the highest gift? What did he speak which made the nations of the world respectful to Hinduism of which they had known very little a little before and which they had looked down upon with great contempt? It was the so-called Vedantism of the Mayavadi school expounded by Sankaracharyya and not the true Vedantism warranted by the shastras which is explained by the Vaishnava Acharyyas. We have already pointed out that the theistic sages of by-gone days condemn the pantheistic philosophy of Sankaracharyya which ignores the fundamental distinction between God and His servants. It has also been explained in these pages that Vaishnavism is not sectarianism as is wrongly supposed by people in general. Hinduism simply means the religion of some particular local community viz. Hindus. It is not the universal religion. Whereas Vaishnavism means, literally as well as in fact, the service of Vishnu, the all-pervading Supreme Lord, by all eternal individual souls. It is not the religion of the Hindus only but of all manifested beings of the world;—a universal religion in the true sense of the word. It embraces Christianity and Mahommadanism as well. He whom Christ and Muhammad designate as God and Allah respectively is essentially a partial concept of Sri Krishna. But the names God and Allah which are symbols to designate the unmanifested Reality do not belong to the same category as the Name by which He manifests Himself. The Name Krishna is the actual Name of the Ultimate Reality or the Positive Absolute, and not a mere designation like God or Allah. Whoever is actually privileged to hear and see God, hears and sees Him, as Krishna. Those who have not seen God and therefore, do not really know Him, strive to designate Him by any names in their vocabulary that they imagine to be sufficiently expressive of the unknown Reality. These man-given designations are changeable as regards their form and import but the transcendental vocabulary in which the denizens of the spiritual realm speak and which is identical with the Name Krishna possesses eternal and indivisible form and import. Hence the Name Krishna like the Personality of the Godhead is the unchangeable Reality both of them being identical, a relationship which is inconceivable to the empiricist and possible only in the Absolute. Christ and Muhammad did not see or hear God. Both of them conversed with Him through a medium. This medium in the case of Christ was the Holy Ghost and it was Zebrail in the case of Muhammad. Zebrail mercifully took up Muhammad on the back of a borak and made him see the ‘Nur Elahi’ or the Light of God. At the sight of this ‘Light of God’ Muhammad fainted and could not see what was there in the Light. Our scriptures say that in the Light there is Krishna. He is discernable only to the eyes chastened by willing selfless service of His most loving devotees. The service of the unknown God is necessarily vague and devoid of that real love and life which characterise the service of the concrete Absolute viz. Krishna. This real love of Krishna which is the highest and only duty is self-manifest as the eternal function of the individual souls. The Christian and the Muhammadan have, therefore, no cause to differ from the Vaishnava. Every being, be he Christian, Muhammedan or Hindu, man, woman, tree or cat, is potentially a Vaishnava. The only difference between one individual soul and another consists in the greater or less degree of realisation of love towards the real, personal God viz. Sri Krishna. None need then quarrel with a true Vaishnava. All apparent religious differences are truly adjusted in Vaishnavism. What the true Muhammadans and Christians find in the Koran and the Bible is fully and properly realised in the transcendental perfection of the religion of the Bhagabat. All those historical religions will one day admit that they are approaches towards the fully manifest eternal religion embodied in the Bhagabat only a glimpse of whose distant reflection they have been enabled to attain.

The Bhagabat proclaims Sri Krishna as the Supreme Lord. ‘Hari or Krishna is the Lord of Maya or the phenomenal world, whereas Siva, Sakti and the other gods and goddesses are comprised within the created world.’ ‘As watering at the roots of a tree nourishes its trunk, branches and twigs, and as food offered to the vital principle bring about the nourishment of all the senses, so only by the worship of Krishna all the gods and goddesses are properly served.’ This is corroborated by the Geeta. ‘Krishna is the sole Lord and Enjoyer of sacrifices. Those who think of other gods as His rivals and as existing independently of Him, do not really know Him and fall into error.’ ‘Those who worship loyally other gods and goddesses worship, indeed, Krishna, but in a wrong way. Such worship enables its votaries to attain the transitory regions of those gods and goddesses. It does not lead them to the spiritual and eternal realm of God.’ The Rik Veda says, ‘The transcendental suris (seers) always see Vishnu manifesting Himself, just as the sun is visible in the sky.’ ‘Krishna’, says the Brahma Samhita, ‘is the Supreme Lord, His form consisting of principles of existence, cognition and bliss, is the cause of all causes.’ All this is summed up by the Chaitanya Charitamrita, ‘Krishna is the Lord of all, the Supreme Ruler of the world; the other gods and goddesses are His servants.’

Quotations can be culled from all the Shastras to prove the scriptural unanimity regarding the absolute overlordship of Krishna. The existence of the holy hierarchy of the gods and goddesses does not desecrate the monotheistic doctrine of true Vedantism or Vaishnavism any more than the presence of the Son, the Holy Ghost and a hierarchy of angels in the case of Christianity or that of the Nabis, Zebrail and a host of Ferestas in the case of Muhammadanism demolishes the monistic character of those religions.

The Shastras furnish us with a connected history of the worship of Krishna through the Ages. The Scriptures divide a cycle into four yugas viz. Satya, Treta, Dwapara and Kali. We live in the Kali yuga. In the Satya yuga there was no distinction of caste or varna. There was only one homogenous community the name of which was ‘hansa’. Vishnu was the only God worshipped by this community whose spiritual guide went by the name of ‘Paramahansa’. Towards the latter part of this yuga the tastes of the people in matters spiritual came to differ. Some in quest of material prosperity began to worship other gods and goddesses. This deviation gave rise to the terms ‘daiva’ and ‘asura’. “The devotees of Krishna were designated ‘daiva’ and those who did not worship Him were called ‘asura’.” (—Padmapurana). Thus while Prahlad is called a ‘sura’ i.e. one belonging to the ‘daiva’ class, his father Hiranyakasipu is named ‘asura’ for his hostility towards Vishnu (Krishna). In the Treta Age this variation of tastes became wider and gave rise to the division of the four varnas of Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Sudra. The Brahmanas were those who worshipped only Vishnu (Krishna). Those people of the other varnas who developed this tendency to strict monotheism were also freely admitted into this class. Thus the Brahmana Vasistha admitted the Kshatriya Viswamitra into his class when the latter showed Brahmanic tendency. The ‘sura’ or ‘daiva’ class of the Satya yuga now came practically to be represented by the Brahmana varna. In the Dwapara yuga, this progressive variation of tastes became still more extensive in consequence of which the different castes and creeds had their origin and there appeared sub-groups within the class of the Brahmans also. Charvaka, a Brahmana by class, held non-Vasihnavite ideas for which he was contemptuously called by the other theistic Brahmanas as an Atheist or rakshasa (a demon). This scornful epithet was also given to Ravana in the Treta yuga for his enmity towards Rama Who is the same as Krishna. Due to this degradation of the Brahman class very few even of those who called themselves Vaishnavas retained the characteristics of the original ‘hansa’ community. The mass of the Brahmanas ceased to designate themselves as Vaishnavas and to be the repositories of the Vaishnavite tradition. Thus we find Ramaharsan and his son Suta, not hereditary Brahmans explaining the Bhagabata to a huge assembly of leading Brahmans. It is very difficult now-a-days to find a Vaishnava possessing the pure monotheistic religion of the original ‘hansa’ community, although there are crores of people in India at the present who profess hereditarily to believe in the overlordship of Krishna, the Positive, Ultimate, Absolute Reality, Knowledge and Bliss.