Everything is God
The Hindu scriptures teach that there are many gods,
incarnations of gods, persons of God and that everything is God, Brahman. In
spite of the belief that the self (atman) of all living beings is actually
Brahman, an oppressive caste system evolved in which the Brahmans, the priestly
caste, possess spiritual supremacy by birth. They are the teachers of the
Vedas and represent the ideal of ritual purity and social prestige. On the
other hand, the Sudra caste are excluded from religious status and their sole
duty in life is “to serve meekly” the other three castes and their thousands of
subcastes.
According to Hindu monist philosophers, humankind’s
purpose is the realization of their divinity and -following a path (marga) to
emancipation (moksha) from the wheel of rebirth - the reabsorbtion of the human
soul (atman) into the ultimate reality, Brahman. For those following the
bhakti path, the purpose is to love God because God created humankind to “enjoy
a relationship - as a father enjoys his children” (Srimad Bhagwatam). For the
ordinary Hindu, the main aim of worldly life lies in conforming to social and
ritual duties, to the traditional rules of conduct for one’s caste - the karma
path.
Although most of the religion of the Vedic texts, which
revolves around rituals of fire sacrifice, has been eclipsed by Hindu doctrines
and practices found in other texts, the absolute authority and sacredness of
the Veda remains a central tenet of virtually all Hindu sects and traditions. The
Veda is composed of four collections, the oldest of which is the Rigveda (“Wisdom
of the Verses”). In these texts, God is described in the most confusing terms.
The religion reflected in the Rigveda is a polytheism mainly concerned with
appeasing deities associated with the sky and the atmosphere, the most
important of which were Indra (god of the heavens and rain), Baruna (guardian
of the cosmic order), Agni (the sacrificial fire), and Surya (the Sun). In
later Vedic texts, interest in the early Rigvedic gods declines, and polytheism
begins to be replaced by a sacrificial pantheism to Prajapati (“Lord of
Creatures”), who is the All. In the Upanishads (secret teachings concerning cosmic
equations), Prajapati merges with the concept of Brahman, the supreme reality
and substance of the universe, replacing any specific personification, thus
transforming the mythology into abstract philosophy. If the contents of these
scriptures were all that human beings had to choose from for guidance, one
would have to conclude that God hid both Himself and the purpose of creation
from humankind.
God is not the author of confusion, nor does He wish
difficulty for mankind. Consequently, when He revealed His final communication
to humankind one thousand four hundred years ago, He ensured that it was
perfectly preserved for all of the generations of human beings to come. In
that final scripture, the Quran (Koran), God revealed His purpose for creating
mankind and, through His last prophet, He clarified all of the details which
man could comprehend. It is on the basis of this revelation and the prophetic
explanations that we [must] analyze the precise answers to the question “Why
did God create man?”...
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