Defining God: the World, the Knowledge, and the Light. Part I.

Posted on November 14th, 2011 | Filed under Academic, Challenges, Community, Featured, Interfaith, Learning, Philosophy, Theology
Tagged with Creation, Dialogue, ethics, Faith, God, Hindu, Humanism, identity, Interfaith, morality, Religion, science, Scripture, transformation

“Know thyself.” -Aristotle

“Meditating on the lotus of your heart, in the center is the untainted; the exquisitely pure, clear, and sorrowless; the inconceivable; the unmanifest, of infinite form; blissful, tranquil, immortal; the womb of Brahma.” -Kaivalyopanishad

"Who am I? What is this body I am in? Where do my thoughts come from? What is the mind? Why do I feel something in my heart? What attracts me to things and creates emotions of like and dislike? What is the very essence of my existence?” -The Human Mind

A curious start. The search for the Self.

These are all the questions I have asked myself since I took my first plane ride from India to the United States at the age of eight. I was so astonished by the Boeing jet. My face was plastered to the windows as I saw constellation Orion from 30,000 feet. I was amazed by the tranquility of our Earth. Every night I looked through my telescope, my mind was in awe constantly asking, “How can this universe be so vast? So beautiful? So perfect in order? I mean, this Earth itself is unfathomably incredible in creation but the universe?”

Emotions would run through me and I would get goosebumps at the thought of the creation of the Universe. Reminiscing over the past twenty one years of my life: I grew up in a traditional, orthodox Brahmin Hindu family. When my family bought our first home, my mother made sure to refer to the “Vaastu Shastra”-an ancient Hindu doctrine that has an archaic view on how the laws of nature affect human dwellings. She would set down the compass as we entered our future home and say “Ha ha, it's facing North-Northeast, this is a good front entrance for the house.” This showed me how holistic my mother's approach to living was.

As for myself, I just looked at how big the house was and made sure that I had my own big room. As I grew up, my mother would teach me many rituals and ceremonies followed in the Hindu tradition. “After all, you are a Brahmin [a person of spiritual knowledge in a community],” she would insist.

Out of respect and admiration for my first Guru in my life, I would follow my mother’s teachings and learn the ancient Hindu scriptures and walk the Hindu way of life. In fact, I did Puja, a religious ritual/set of prayers performed by Hindus as an offering to various forms of Dieties, every morning of my elementary, middle, and high school days. I felt empty if I didn’t bring myself together, becoming meditative/one-pointed, every morning.

Redefining Religion.

It was not until I reached college that my search for the so-called “Self” gained more momentum. I was not looking to define Sai Santosh Kumar Kolluru, a label given to me. I was not looking to accommodate myself to Hinduism or any "Religion". As my college career took off, I was constantly questioning my surroundings, questioning the nature of human beings, questioning chemistry, physics, java programming, you name it. I would meditatively stare at trees and birds chirping monotonously, observe the sound of wind forcing the leaves off the ground, I would sit and feel the warmth of Sun’s light on my skin. “What is this nature? Why am I confined to these surroundings?” I would ask myself.

I felt like I was trapped; I felt like I was attempting to break loose and run free from the mind and the body but I couldn't. I constantly asked myself, "What am I? What is Sai Kolluru?" My first pursuit to understand the Self (referred to as the Atman-Soul-Spirit), through which I was hoping to understand the Universe as a whole, led me to Hinduism.

I questioned and re-questioned, studied, examined, and tried to understand why my mother insisted on me doing Puja everyday, go to the temple every week, be initiated into Gayatri Mantra and wear the Yagnopavitam (sacred thread to remind oneself of Spiritual transcendence). The conclusion I came to was that these few methods of self-discipline and introspection provided me with a proper, free, conscious, open-minded, and an inclusive mindset that would allow me to make the right decisions during the toughest circumstances in my life. It was just an attempt on my parents’ part to bring out the divinity within me. They were trying to tell me that I am human and that as a human being I have a duty to learn and be a part of the world around me.

I then started to question the existence of Religion. The purpose of religion, I've come to understand, is to first aid the human being in creating stability in one's life. Once this is established, religion then progresses towards achieving a level of consciousness that understands the transcendental Reality, the Supreme force, the Ultimate Being, God (or whatever you want to label “it”). I was clear in my mind that religion cannot suppress the human being. Religion cannot bind us with shackles and order us to follow this or that, it must be advisory. It cannot tell us there is only one path! It just simply cannot. For religion to do such a thing is to defy the very existence of the human being.

I’ve learned several principles through Hinduism, one of which was to understand Ekam Sat Vipraha Bahuda Vadanti: Truth is one, the paths are many. Another is: religion is the means, not the ends, to liberate the human mind--in other words, elevate the human consciousness! Religion cannot force the Human mind to think only one thing and thus freeze society in one form. So then the question of morality arose in my mind. In Hinduism, the Hindu moral code acts as an advisory rather than as a commandment. This taught me that religion must exist and only exist to point out the consequences of wrong doings; when these consequences are confirmed with the human experience and reasoning, the human mind develops the consciousness to teach the mind what is right and wrong. After all we are given this human form to rise in our consciousness, this is the purpose of religion in my opinion.

Religion must leave it up to us to make decisions in our lives while acting as a guide and a path but never through Hinduism was my mind forced to act simply because it was written in my scriptures. The human mind and the spirit that exists within us has a divine consciousness, a consciousness (not just in human beings) that is interwoven inextricably with the Universe as the single, most powerful element that can help us differentiate between right and wrong. I have come to realize this through not just my own faith of Hinduism but through Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in their various forms. Thus helping me elevate my consciousness and output my Divine potential in unfathomable ways connecting me to the Universe beyond humanity.

What is God? Who is God? Understanding the Human Mind.

Buddha once said, “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who has said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”

In Hinduism, we have created millions of Gods and Goddesses. No, Hindus are not worshiping "false Gods;" there is no such concept of a "false God" in Hinduism! No, we are not worshiping rocks and statues! In Hinduism, the Human mind has the freedom to create, symbolize, and worship the Supreme Being/Force/Power in whatever shape or form. We invoke the spirit into the object of worship and through this object, an object that is tangible to the human mind and nature (thus Lord Ganesha, Lord Hanuman, Lord Sri Ram, and others). We seek the Divine and connect with the Divinity within us. We believe in one God.

Let's define God. God in the Abrahamic faiths is usually a Supreme Being, a human form (the mind created this form, by the way). For Hindus, God is not necessarily a living Being. Hinduism leaves it up to you and your own nature to discover "God." For example, in the Hindu school of thought of duality (Vishishtadvaita), the Supreme Being, with many arms and heads, is the creation of the Human mind to make sense of this so-called “God” or Divine Force. The creation of various Gods and Goddesses is an attempt to help the human mind make sense of the various elements that exist within the nature of the Universe. These elements of that nature are depicted through humans in a human form, that’s why our concept of Gods include the Creator, the Destroyer, and the Preserver. This concept of duality is not limited to a male God in Hinduism; one of Hinduism’s major denominations is Shaktism, the Divine element of the Feminine (the Mother of the Universe). And still, here I am only talking about the Vedanta system of philosophy of duality. Hinduism has five other schools of thought that philosophize, debate, discuss, and conclude the concept of God. The Truth here is to realize that God does not discriminate in which path to take to understand “Him,” the human mind does!

Understanding the Universe through Religion.

As humans we constantly, constantly try to seek a material solution to our problems. Material problems have only material solutions which are limited to and bounded by this material world, controlled by the human mind. Problems dealing with the Self have solutions only within the Self, the Spirit--beyond the material world and the human mind. We constantly fail to understand that we are the creators of our own Universe and in the process; the Universe is also constantly trying to aid us in our creation as it created us. We are its most valued treasure. So let the mind breath, let the soul illuminate, and live and let live.

In Part II, I will try to prove many of the statements I make in this article. I will do this by talking about the Mind, the nature of the Human Mind. I will introduce the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta, which is a concept of God that speaks of non-duality. This philosophy will try to go past the concept of God in a duality form, a form that is created out of the human mind (a God that deals with Human devotion--emotion based). I will then try to categorize and attempt to define God in the most scientifically and spiritually compatible manner while being practically applicable and attainable. I will then go on to propose what God is and its physical form of existence in the world today. This mainly follows the non-duality philosophy, which is past the duality philosophy of understanding and defining God.

Sources:

Featured image, in the creative commons, is courtesy of fotopedia by way of Creative Commons.