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Re: ARTICLE : Just say no to "Hinduism" (was Re: ARTICLE : On
H. Krishna Susarla (susarla.krishna@tumora.swmed.edu) wrote:
: In that case, one can infer that you belief the "correct" belief to be
: the opposite: that all the deities are different forms of God.
: But how do you know that? Dhruba, what if it actually IS the case that
: there is one Supreme Deity amongst many demigods? Why do you not consider
: that possibility when it is so clearly enunciated in the Giita?
Dear Hari Krishnaji:
Thank you for following up. It seems that the main question is: who are
the anyadevatAs? The anyadevatAs are His partial manifestations, His
vibhutis. Your view, as I understand is, KR^ishhNa/vishhNu is the big
brother among the demigods, hence, He is to be called the Supreme Godhead.
Arjuna also had similar notions. He asked Him 'keshhU keshhU cha
bhAveshhU chintyo.asi bhagavanmaya' (in which which manifestations, should
I think of you ?) (10.17). Let us see what Sri KR^ishhNa had to
say about such questions.
Sri KR^ishhNa said:
yad yad vibhutimat.h sattvaM shrImadUrjitameva vA.
tattadevAvagachha tvaM mama tejo.aMshasambhavaM. 10.41
In this verse, He says that every vibhuti is born with a part of His
power. That means, the differences in them is due to the different
aspects of His power that they are born with. He also said that there is
endless scope of these differences 'nasti anta vistarasya me' (10.19), and
He recommended Arjuna to not look for Him in this variety individually,
but look for Him as the One in all creation, because the all creation is
but the mainfestation of one part of Him (10.42).
Herein lies the key to His objection to the worship of anyadevatAs.
Even if one whorships the entire collection of anyadevatAs, one can
effectively worship only some aspects of His manifested power that the
worshipper has identified. But God is much greater than the sum
of the His manifested powers that the anyadevatAs represent at any point
of time. The continued evolution of the world is made possible by the
manifestation of more and more of His powers.
Therefore, I will refer you to His these answers to Arjuna, which
indicates that He is not the big brother among demigods. I find two
evidences for that in the SBG; first, He lists His KR^ishhNa incarnation
as a vibhuti (vR^ishhNInAM vAsudevoshmi 10.37) and also vishhNu as a
vibhuti (AdityAnaM ahaM vishhNu 10.21). The second evidence is in the
way He has described His true Self:
sarvendriya gunNAbhAsaM sarvendriyavivarjitaM. 13.14
(Subtly expressed as through all indriyas but bereft of all indriyas).
There are 10+1 indriyas (5 karmendriyas, 5 GYAnendriyas and the mind).
The indriyas include the body parts. That means, He, the parama bhAva,
is not manifest as the body, which He describes more explicitly in this
verse:
avyaktaM vyaktimApannaM manyante mAmabuddhayaH.
paraM bhAvaM ajAnanto mamAvyayaM anuttamaM. 7.24
He is thus the unexpressed in the incarnation, and He describes Himself
as the imperishable parama bhAva. At the same time, He also said that
those who ignore His human body, are muDas, because they too do not know
the (entire scope of His) parama bhAva.
avajAnanti mAM muDA mAnushhIM tanumAshritaM.
paraM bhAvaM ajananto mama bhuta maheshvaraM. 9. 11
In this verse, He reinforces the idea of vibhuti, that the material form,
that is, the human body (mAnushhI tanu) is also the manifestation of His
power, elsewhere He says that even thouugh He takes the human form, He
remains not subject to aparA prakR^Iti (4.6).
: You certainly have not been able to show from the Giita that other
: deities besides Krishna/Vishnu are anything other than subordinate
: entities (hence the term demigod - one who is not God but is invested
: with some of the potencies of God). The evidence from the Giita clearly
: states that the devas/demigods/other deities are NOT the same as
: Krishna.
: One can care for someone even if he worships a subordinate deity. In fact,
: if one truly cared about others he would try to convince them of the truth,
: rather than simply telling them what they want to hear.
: yat tad agre vi.sam iva
: pari.naame 'm.rtopamam
: tat sukha`m saattvika`m proktam
: aatma-buddhi-prasaada-jam
: "That which in the beginning may be just like poison but at the end is just
: like nectar and which awakens one to self-realization is said to be
: happiness in the mode of goodness." (Giita 18.37)
Hari Krishnaji, I think that this verse describes an altogether different
issue; it is the issue of the sAttvika sukha, something that is 'proktaM
Atma-buddhi prasAdajaM' (said to be the blessing of atma-buddhi). I hope
that you recognize it to be different from a feeling of smugness that
could be had from following a particular theological line and expounding
it as the necessary 'poison' that a true theology will initially seem
like, and only later, will induce happiness.
I do not have that Atma-buddhi, therefore, I try to read the SBG for
myself.
: Finally, I think it worthwhile to point out that opponents of exclusivism
: (as you define the term) are all too quick to exclude themselves. Consider
: the logic: I am not exclusive because I accept all other religions/faiths/
: and beliefs. But I don't accept those religions or parts of religions
: which are themselves exclusive. Is this very sensible to you?
This is not 'very' sensible, but certainly is an excellent initial
argument. You are looking at only a part of the objection of the
'opponents of exclusivism'. Your argument would be true if the 'opponents
of exclusivism' did also want to throw the 'exclusivists' out of the big
picture that sanAtana dharma provides. I do not believe that they do
that.
With best regards,
Dhruba.
