God in the bhakti tradition – How can we infer his existence and communicate with him?
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
When we talk about the existence of God, firstly, without a proper understanding of God as what we are referring to, to understand whether he exists or not, is a redundant question. For, if I ask you what is the time in Chicago right now, you can probably tell me it's 2.36 and I can check that by going on Google or checking on some watch. So, there's an objective proof for that.
But, if I ask you, say, if you ask me, does my mother love me, does my father love me? Now, I can't give you objective proof for that. So, there's no mathematical proof for that, although there are inferences. So, with respect to the existence of God, the definition of God given in the Bhagavad Gita is that he is the cause of all causes.
He's the beginningless beginning of everything. Now, everything needs to have a beginning. What that beginning is may vary in opinion of different people.
But, if we look at the fact that there is consciousness within the universe, the beginning should have some consciousness. And the way the Bhagavad Gita puts it is that science and God are not in contradiction. Rather, God is the foundation for science.
In the sense that, why should nature exhibit any order at all? A Nobel laureate mathematician from India, Srinivas Ramanujan, he put it this way that an equation for me has no meaning unless it represents a thought of God. So, the science explains nature, but the very explainability of science requires an explanation. You guys, is this sounding familiar? Remember, the contingency argument, everything has an explanation.
He talked about order. That's teleological argument. So, he's getting into precisely the arguments we've been studying the past couple of weeks.
So, another argument which we have, there are basically two aspects to God, his transcendence and his immanence, that he exists beyond this world and he exists within the world. So, the order that we see within this world is one pointer to his existence. Can you see the PowerPoint is coming? I'll put all this in the PowerPoint actually.
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Okay, everybody, here we go. Now, get your questions ready for when he's done here. So, if you consider God, these numbers which I've quoted are from the standard text of the Hindu tradition, that is the Bhagavad Gita.
So, this is 10th chapter, 8th text, 11th chapter, 39th text. So, God is not seen as a portion of existence, that he's existing somewhere. Maybe he exists, maybe he doesn't.
He's considered the precondition for existence. Without his existence, nothing would be possible. It is, as I said, he's the cause of all causes, the beginning of everything.
And God is the explanation for the explainability of nature. He stands not in contradiction to science, he stands at the foundation of science. Now, another way of inferring, so this is, I talked about the immanent aspect, immanence and transcendence.
Transcendence refers to his existence beyond this world, beyond nature. So, our longing for lasting love points towards a lasting object of love. What this means is every one of us longs to live forever and to love forever.
Most of the movies or novels, they talk about romance and they talk about happily ever after. Now, if you look at real life, nothing lasts forever. So, where does our longing for lasting life and lasting love come from? If a child in a remote tribal location, disconnected from the rest of the world, in Africa, suddenly tells his mother, I want a pizza.
Where did he hear about pizza? So, if nothing around us ever lasts forever, where does our desire for lasting life and lasting love come from? So, this desire points to some lasting object of love. And that object of love is described to be God, as Krishna. So, he is all attractive.
He is not just personal, he is transpersonal. That means, he is personal but he is not limited by his personality. He is personal at the same time he is pervasive.
He exists across all of existence. Now, this topic was existence of God and communication with God or connecting with God. So, if we consider different objects, we will need different subjects if you have to study.
If somebody wants to study rocks in some forested area or desert area or remote area, all that they have to do is go to the rocks and study them over there. The rocks are just lying over there. But if somebody wants to study deer, deer is conscious.
So, to some extent, the ethologist need the consent of the deer. The deer will run away, he can't study them. So, if you go further, if you consider human tribes, if you are studying anthropology, then we need their consent and cooperation to a greater extent.
Deer at least will just observe, the tribes you would like to talk with them and understand them. So, the point I am driving through is that as the subject of study becomes more and more influential or powerful, the method requires increasing cooperation and initiative from their side. If somebody wants to interview the President of America, it's not just their initiative, it's the President's initiative.
The President has to choose among many people who want to interview me, whom I will interview. So, now, if we consider God, he's the highest up in the hierarchy. So, we need to take initiative from our side, but our initiative is not enough to communicate with him.
He has to take the initiative from his side also, because he is not just an insentient object to be studied, he's a supreme person who has to reveal himself to us. So, the example given in the tradition is that when the sun is to be seen, no matter how much effort we make at night, if somebody decides to get a flashlight, I want to see the sun with a more and more powerful flashlight. No matter how powerful a flashlight we may get, we can't see the sun at night, because the sun will rise of its own accord.
So, the point here is that when we study science, so, the perception is through reciprocation. To understand God, stand under God. That means we have to cooperate with him.
We have to study him on his terms. It's like if the police want to interrogate a criminal, they may demand the criminal to come to their house. But if you want to interview the President of America, we have to go where they are.
So, similarly, if you want to communicate with God, if you want to understand God, we have to do it on his terms. And what are those terms? We need to elevate our consciousness. Science studies through controlled experiments.
Whatever object we want to study, we put it in a controlled environment and do experiments with it. But that approach will not work for God, because he is not an object whom we can control. So, it's not experiment, but experience.
And for that experience, we need to have self-control. We need to elevate our consciousness. The idea is there is a material level of reality, there is a spiritual level of reality.
And if I close my eyes and you put a beautiful painting in front of me, if I try to see it with my ears, no matter how much I do, whatever I make, I won't be able to see it. So, I need to raise my consciousness, I need to open my eyes, have the right apparatus to see it. So, what is this right apparatus for communicating with God? There's a process.
And in the Bhakti Yoga tradition, this process has nine stages. There are Sanskrit words for this. I've kept the English words over here.
It first begins with faith in the color combinations. These are nine stages in which the first it begins with faith. Now, here faith is seen as positive curiosity.
So, how do we communicate with God? First, at least as a test, as a tentative hypothesis, one accepts, maybe there is some being out there, I'm open to explore. So, faith here at this stage refers to positive curiosity. Maybe there's something out there.
Then, when we move forward, there is spiritual association. We associate with spiritually minded people who provide us both intellectual and practical insights for the spiritual journey. In that spiritual association, our desire for connecting with God becomes stronger and stronger.
And this whole process, if you see, I'll explain this later, but the last stage here is love. So, the idea is that God reveals himself to those who love him. And for others, they may just see his power, but they can't see his personality.
They can't see him in person. It's like I going back to the earlier point that if somebody wants to see the President of America, the President of America has the discretion to choose who they want to spend their time with. So, every citizen in the country can feel the power of the President of America.
The rule of the government is there and we have to follow the rules, otherwise we get into trouble. So, there is the power of God and there is the personal presence of God. So, the power of God is seen in the bhakti tradition through the laws of nature.
If somebody jumps down from a 10-story building, then they may forget gravity, but gravity won't forget them. So, the law of nature is one way we can perceive the power of God. But if you want to ultimately perceive him as a person, communicate with him on a personal basis, then we need to come to the stage of love.
When he sees that we love him, and then he elevates us to the spiritual level of consciousness. And at the spiritual level of consciousness, we can perceive him. Otherwise, we are, some people are color blind.
So, one particular color they are not able to see. Similarly, all of us are right now considered to be spiritually blind. You can see physical reality, but you can't see spiritual reality.
So, these nine stages are basically the stages for rising from material consciousness to spiritual consciousness. And at spiritual consciousness, there is not just communication with God, there is perception of God. There is reciprocation and interaction with God as a person.
So, with faith, when one starts spiritual association, comes the spiritual mind. Why do you people practice this? What do you get out of this? How does it all make sense to you? How does it work for you? When we ask these questions, slowly understanding starts emerging. And not just understanding emerges, also our desires become more spiritualized.
Our desires are not just linear, they are triangular. Triangular means that we desire things based on seeing, not just seeing some desirable object, but also seeing others enjoying that object. Suppose a new phone comes in the market.
You might see the phone. OK, it looks good. I don't need one.
But if you see some celebrity endorsing that phone, say, I use this. Oh, really? I want this phone. So, similarly, in spiritual association, by seeing other spiritually minded people connecting with God, the desire to connect with Him increases.
Then there are spiritual disciplines. The spiritual disciplines center primarily on fixing the mind on God. We have processes like mantra meditation, study of scripture and worship of the forms of God.
By all this, by these spiritual disciplines, our consciousness rises upwards. And then you go through the stages. This is the fourth stage is significant.
It's purification. If we are driving through a particular area, I don't think you get smog or fog or mist here in Phoenix, do you? Sometimes? Dusty. Dusty.
OK. So, suppose this heavy mist, then we can't see anything clearly, even if things in front of us are there. So, impurity is considered to be like a mist within us, which prevents us from perceiving spiritual reality.
So, by the spiritual disciplines that are practiced, discipline practice, purification starts happening. Purification means anger goes down. Greed goes down.
Depression goes down. Temptations go down. And then that brings calmness and clarity.
And then from there, that's the stage where conviction develops. So, faith is compared in the tradition to a banana tree. It can be easily shaken.
But conviction is compared to a banyan tree. At that stage, one has experienced the transformative effects of spiritual practice. Just like if we first time go to some doctor and maybe we have some, our stomach is upset and then we don't know whether doctor is good or not.
We just go there, let me try it out. But if we take the treatment and we find that we have been cured, then at that time, our faith in doctor goes to a much greater degree. So, at this stage of conviction, the previous three stages have led to an inner transformation, have led to the person becoming free from inner negativities.
And God is perceived in different ways at different levels. Suppose there's a small baby who's just been born a few months ago. A newborn baby doesn't even understand that there is a mother and my mother is taking care of me and feeding me.
The baby just exists, cries and whenever the baby gets the mother's breast, sucks milk from there. But as she starts growing, she starts understanding there's a person over there, this person loves me. So, now suppose it's a cold night and on that cold night, the baby is shivering.
And the mother sees that and the mother puts a comforter on the baby and the baby stops shivering. The baby has not opened her eyes, has not seen her mother over there. But just by the warmth that she feels, she infers from there that my mother must be here, my mother has put this comforter.
So, the warmth is the basis for the inference of the presence of a loving mother. Similarly, at the stage of conviction, the calmness, the clarity, the security, the strength that we feel internally by the practice of spirituality creates that conviction based on inference that there is some higher reality I'm connecting with. And by the connection with that higher reality, that's how I'm experiencing this calmness.
And from conviction comes taste. Taste is where we start connecting with God because that connection itself is so joyful. Most of us, even if we, most people, even if they connect with God or pray to God, it is often to get something desirable from Him.
The guru of my guru, Swami Prabhupada, he would say that if somebody goes to a temple, a church, a mosque and prays to God, give me my bread, give me my daily bread. So, at one level it's good, we are going to God at least for getting bread. So, this shows love for bread, not love for God.
So, initially we may see God as the source of desirable objects. I want something and God can provide me that. But by the time one comes to a level of taste, one sees God not as a source of desirable objects, one sees God as the supremely desirable object.
But He is the source of supreme pleasure. Connection with Him is the supreme joy. And from that taste comes attachment.
And from that attachment one starts experiencing spiritual emotions. And those spiritual emotions culminate in love. So, at the stage of love, God becomes a constant abiding presence.
In fact, He becomes like the sun at noon. He becomes the basis by which we perceive everyone else. And of course, apart from this, there are many mystical sightings that some saints or some seers have had.
But the experience of God as described in the yoga tradition, the Bhakti Yoga tradition is that it's a universal spiritual right for everyone. Some people may say, oh, I have seen God. Or I went, I slept and I had a dream and I saw God in the dream or whatever.
Or I had a near-death experience, I saw some divine being. The Bhakti Yoga tradition says we don't have to put faith in such supernatural claims by some people. How do you know whether they are true or not? It's very difficult for anyone else to know about it.
For them, they might have very strong conviction because of their experiences. But the experience of God is a universal spiritual right. Every one of us can experience it if we follow appropriate spiritual path.
As I said, that this experience of God leads to purification, it leads to satisfaction, it leads to elevation. Elevation means our consciousness rises upwards and ultimately it leads to emigration. Emigration means that we become freed from this world.
As I said, there is a material level of reality, there is a spiritual level of reality. There is a material world, there is a spiritual world. So we emigrate to the spiritual world.
And that is considered to be life's perfection. That is considered to be liberation and the parameter of a supremely successful life. Thank you.
Wow. Thank you very much. So, now I can always ask him questions.
Have any of you come up with any questions you are kind of curious about? What do you want to say about it? If you get to that level of emigration, does that mean that you all have to go through the process of reincarnation and live a good enough life? Yeah. So reincarnation is meant to lead to liberation. The body is considered to be like a vehicle for the soul.
The soul, soul is who we are. The soul is the source of consciousness. And the soul moves from one body to another and the body is like a vehicle.
So if you have one car or one bike and it gets old, then you'll get another bike or another vehicle. And what you will get, the vehicle which you will get will depend on two things. The price and the preference.
What you like and how much you can pay. So similarly, for the soul, when the soul moves from one body to another, the soul gets another body based on its how much price it can pay. That is the kind of karma that the soul has done.
Good work, bad work. And the preference, the kind of desire the soul has developed. But when one comes to the level of immigration, it's like the journey is over.
So then one doesn't need any more vehicles because one has come home. So that time reincarnation ends and at the time our eternal life begins. So reincarnation, the word karna means flesh, the carnivorous animals.
So reincarnation means to come again in flesh, to get another body. But beyond reincarnation means to have no more need for body because we are no longer evolving. We have attained the spiritual world, which is the zenith of evolution.
Does anyone else have any other questions? Do you believe in predestination? Not exactly. It depends on what the word means. There are certainly some things which are not in our control and something which are in our control.
So the things which are not in our control are said to be determined by destiny. But each of us has the opportunity to take initiative. Say, for example, life is considered to be like a tennis game.
In a tennis match, sometimes we are serving, sometimes we are returning. When we are serving, we have much more control where we will serve forehand, backhand, into the body, away from the body, whatever. When we are returning, wherever the ball comes, we just have to put our racket there and get the ball back in play.
So there are situations in our life when there may be very very little in our control. That's like if the opposing player is a champion server, just raining down aces, can't do much. So that kind of situation where there is very little in our control, that is the situation we say has come by destiny.
But it's not that if predestination means that everything is ordained by the past, that's not true. We do have free will and we are meant to use the free will in an intelligent way. In fact, the tradition says that if everything would be predestined, then the presence of scripture, the presence of wisdom texts, the presence of saints who guide, all of this would become meaningless because we are already programmed to act in a particular way.
What would guidance do? So predestination is definitely not what we accept. So another example we could have is that if we consider life to be like a card game, destiny determines the hand that we get. Our free will is how we play that hand.
So destiny determines what happens to us. We determine how we respond to that situation. So you can say destiny determines the face that we have, the physical beauty that we have.
But we determine the expression on the face. We determine whether we have a scowl or a smile. So we always have free will.
And by using our free will properly, positively, spiritually, we can create a bright future for ourselves. Why do we cling to the physical world? It's because we have desires to enjoy physical things. It is the world is compared to the word in Sanskrit is Maya.
Maya is illusion. Illusion is oversimplification. It is basically like a virtual reality.
So why would somebody want to keep playing a virtual reality, maybe a virtual reality game or a virtual reality situation? Why would one enter into that? Yeah, we think that's what that's what you feel that will be more enjoyable. So similarly, the soul is spiritual. But as long as the soul has the desire to enjoy material things, the soul clings on to material things and when the soul experiences something better.
So if it's completely dark and there's a candle which is flickering, we will try our best to protect that candle from all sides from the wind because that's the only source of light we have. But if the power comes back and there's an abundant light in the room, we won't care if the candle switches off. So similarly, when we do not have a spiritual understanding of life and we do not have any spiritual experiences, then physical things are the only sources of pleasure that we know.
So even if they give little pleasure, even if they are all, they create a lot of uncertainty, like a candle which will switch off anytime, get extinguished, still we cling on to that. What happens to you if you cease to reincarnate? God, we live with God in a life of eternal loving joy. So God as Krishna is described in the Bhakti tradition to be not a person who delights in his Godhood, but rather he subordinates his Godhood for the purpose of love.
So Krishna, if you've seen the various pictures, he doesn't act as if he's God, you bow down to be. He's not like some old being sitting sternly in the clouds and passing judgments. He takes on various roles and the devotees take on various roles and within those roles, everybody enjoys the reciprocation of love.
So it's like an eternal play of love. Somebody might be a millionaire, but in a play they might take the role of a pauper. And in that role, as if they are with their loved ones, others are playing roles, they enjoy that.
So in the kingdom of God, there's an eternal play of love. And we join that play. It's true.
In almost 150 years have passed, when Darwin wrote his book on evolution, at that time, one of his strongest supporters was Thomas Huxley. So he was considered the bulldog of Darwin. Oh yeah, Thomas Huxley, he's the one who created the word agnosticism.
Yeah. So he himself acknowledged that to say that consciousness came from matter is as satisfactory as the explanation as the jinn coming from Aladdin's lamp. Now, interestingly, that was 150 years ago almost.
But even now, I think on the 125th anniversary of the Science magazine, they published an issue with 125 questions for which science doesn't have answers. The first question was, where did the universe come from? And the second question was, where did consciousness come from? So that is still something which doesn't have answers. So remember, we did philosophy in my different class, right? Materialism, dualism, idealism.
That's my view on evolution. The word evolution can be understood at three different levels. And often the conflict comes because the term is not clarified.
So evolution at a basic level refers to variations caused by natural phenomena, genetic changes, which lead to adaptation of species. So every species develops certain features by which they can adapt better to nature. So this we could call as, this is the primary level where we have evidence for evolution.
Now, this is an observed natural phenomenon. That's one meaning of the word evolution. Second is that as an inferred natural mechanism.
So this is where evolution is considered to be the mechanism by which one species changes into another species. And ultimately, all species have emerged by evolution. And the third level is evolution is seen as an all-explaining ideology.
Where evolution is considered to be the explanation for everything. Not just the variation within species, not just the emergence of new species, but even the emergence of life itself. And if you extend it further, there is a grand picture where the life, the universe also is said to have evolved from some primordial source.
So that's what some, so that's now I would say the first level, there's no debate on it. As observed natural phenomena, there's a huge amount of evidence and there's no debate on it. Second level, there is a good amount of evidence, but still the jury, I would say, is out.
And in our tradition, we don't see any issue with the first level. In the second level, there is an understanding that there is a higher organizing principle, which manifests the order in this world. So like we have gravity.
Now, gravity is a phenomenological explanation. It's not a causal explanation. That means that when Newton came up with F is equal to gm and m2 upon r square, he did not really explain the phenomena in terms of what causes evolution.
He himself, when he was asked that question, how does a force act like this through space over millions of miles? So he said, I'm not going into causes. I'm simply talking about mathematical expression to explain observed phenomena. So phenomenological explanation is simply that we give a name and a mathematical equation to explain and predict observations.
So evolution could be seen as a phenomenological explanation, but there is no mathematical equation for evolution. Nobody knows how evolution is going to proceed further, whether we are going to evolve in a particular way in future, whether we already attained the zenith of evolution, what we don't know. So evolution, if the evidence is persuasive enough, it could be seen as a mechanism, natural mechanism like gravity, but it is not as much of a bedrock truth as gravity is.
Our primary issue would be evolution at the third level when it is seen as an explanatory magic wand. How did the universe come about? Evolution. How did life come about? Evolution.
Now, if you actually go into the evidence, we find that the evidence for chemical evolution is very, very scanty. That means from the primordial soup for consciousness or life to emerge, there is, there may be some evidence in terms of fossils and other things which could point towards biological evolution, changing of one species to another. But origin of consciousness, that's extremely speculative.
We actually did this a couple of weeks ago. Evolution is very broad. There are different traditions who have different kinds of marks on their head.
They all have their particular significances. Weaver, this, you can see this, this represents a foot. This is like a footprint.
If you put a foot over here and this is a leaf. So the leaf represents nature and the foot represents the food of God, food of God. So nature is like our mother and God like the father.
So you put the father and the mother on our forehead to represent that they are our masters. They have given us life and our life is meant to serve them. So apart from that, in different traditions, there may be specific things that are worn.
Women often wear a dot, a red dot that indicates whether they are married. So that is additional. But this is what we wear and the path of Bhakti Yoga.
Thank you. Thank you for coming in. So are the Hindus consider themselves idol worshippers? You know, sometimes Christians and Muslims criticize.
So the word idol has a particular connotation, which conveys the idea of some stone image or image that is being worshipped and that is forbidden in the Abrahamic religions, not worship a graven image. The understanding here in the Bhakti tradition is that God makes himself accessible in various ways to us. And the stone images, we use the word deity to describe the embodiment of God in matter.
So the idea is God makes himself accessible in various ways to us. And one way in which he makes himself accessible is as the deity, as the stone or marble or whatever images they are. So no Hindu will call themselves an idol worshipper because the understanding is this is not just a statue or a bust.
There is a whole sacred process by which the divine is invited to manifest in that particular image. So we all understand that this is stone. When we go to a temple, we see a stone image, stone.
But we understand it is not just stone. Two examples to illustrate this. A hundred dollar note is also a piece of paper.
An ordinary piece of paper, we may tear it up. But if somebody starts tearing a hundred dollar note, what are you doing? Why? It is also paper, but it is more than paper. And a child who has no understanding of currency or a tribal who has no understanding of currency, you people, why do you value this paper so much? It would make no sense to them.
Similarly, if there is an ordinary statue, that's like an ordinary paper. But the deity manifestation is like a currency note, where by a special process, in this case, the Federal Bank of America or whatever has authorized that currency note. And that's how that currency note acquires special value.
Similarly, the deity, the image is sanctified by inviting the divine to manifest. And the Bhakti tradition considers that God is so accommodating that he wants us to experience him fully. And thus, when he manifests in a particular form, we can behold him with his eyes, we can garland him, we can dress him, we can worship him, we can relate with him as a person.
And that creates more of a personal bond with the divine. So, the other example is that it's like a letterbox. If you just make a box outside your home and put some letters there, they are not going to go to the destination.
But the government authorized letterbox, you put your letters there, they reach the destination. Similarly, the deity is not a stone image. It is made of stone, but it is the divine who is invited to manifest through the stone.
And thus it becomes a way to connect with the divine. Hey, I've got a question for you. You know, there are a lot of religions in the world with a lot of gods and deities and so on.
So, you go to, you know, the Norse had Thor and Odin, the Greeks had Zeus and so on. From your perspective, do you think that those religions were worshipping real deities? Were they worshipping devas? Were they worshipping, say, for example, Indra and, you know, the various Hindu pantheon? Or do they have their own deities or are they real or are they just fiction? Do you have any opinion about that? Oh, good question. So, we have different traditions worshipping different gods.
So, are they worshipping gods in the Vedic tradition, in the broad Indian tradition or worshipping something different? See, I'll talk about this at three levels. First is at the conceptual or philosophical, then at the historical and then at the emotional or personal level. So, the conceptual level, the Bhakti tradition talks about God as not just one being.
Broadly, we think of two schools of thought with respect to God. There is polytheism and there is monotheism. So, you could talk about, you could extend this and talk about four levels.
One is that there is no God. Atheism. Then above that there are many gods.
That's polytheism. Then there is one God. That is monotheism.
And the Bhakti understanding is not monotheism actually. It's about this. There is only God.
There is only God means that our existence is also not separate from God. We are all parts of God. Matter, the stable is also an energy of the divine.
So, in fact, everyone is considered to be godly because everyone is a part of God. So, from the philosophical perspective, if we consider anybody that there is one God, but he has many manifestations. So, the theological term we use for this is polymorphic monotheism.
Polymorphic. Morphi is form, poly is many. So, there is one God who can have many manifestations.
So, even the Devas, the gods with a small g and plural, they are also considered at one level a manifestation of God. So, if somebody can't worship the Supreme Being, if you consider this to be like a pyramid and there is one divine being who is the source of everyone and everything, the source of all virtues, all good qualities, all attractiveness. But then that one divine being manifests in different ways.
So, that one God manifests in different forms and these forms may also attract worship in their own ways. So, when somebody is worshipping Indra or somebody is worshipping Shiva, it is understood that they are also worshipping Krishna. But they do not understand that they are worshipping Krishna.
That is why they will not get elevated all the way to that destination. But they will get elevated even by that. So, in that sense, whatever we are attracted to, it is a spark of God that we are attracted to.
But if we do not know that it is a spark of God we are attracted to, then we may not make much spiritual advancement by that. Depending on how much we can connect that spark with the divine, to that extent, we make spiritual advancement. So, in that sense, there is a very inclusive understanding of God at the philosophical perspective.
In the historical perspective, one of the saints in our tradition Bhaktivinoda Thakur explains that the one divine is perceived in different ways by people according to their culture, their language, their mentality, their upbringing. So, all these act like filters or shapers of vision by which we perceive that one divine in different ways. So, whenever any religion comes up with any conception of God, that is the understanding that there is something higher than me, which I need to worship, which I need to appease.
So, in that sense, whoever anybody may be worshipping, there may or may not be an exact correlation between the gods in say the Greco-Roman pantheon or in the Vedic pantheon. But the idea is by worshipping some being higher than oneself, one can grow spiritually to some extent. I have an interesting question.
What if that God is, like for the Norse pantheon, a lot of their gods and goddesses are hunters. Most of them are hunters. And so those people, they hunted and they ate meat.
Krishna devotion typically advocates vegetarianism. What would be going on there? Yeah, the gods are hunters who eat meat. Well, as I said that there is a bottom-up conceptualization of God and there is a top-down revelation of God.
That means that God can choose to reveal himself. Going back to the earlier example of the president, if you want to approach the president, the president can choose to give an interview where the president explains who I am and what I stand for. But along with that, each one of us has our own concept of what the president is, what the president stands for.
So like that people will have their own conceptualizations of God. And the conceptualization of God may not necessarily be in agreement with the reality of God. That's why I say that even if people may worship one God, but they don't necessarily worship the same God.
You say we are all worshipping one God, but we are not worshipping the same God. So I would say that based on people's own conceptions of what the divine should be, they may come up with some conceptions. Now, depending on what is the result of that conception on their life, if that makes them follow some level of morality to some extent, makes them more regulated, less violent, less exploitative, then that is good.
But ultimately, the conceptualization of God can only take us this far. It's like by our own conception, how much can we understand the president? But when we know the president as a person, when the president chooses to connect with us, then we can get to know them much better. So that's why there is a top-down revelation.
That's why Krishna advises in Bhagavad Gita, if you just focus on me, rather than on the Devas, that's the best thing to do. That's true. And this top-down revelation, we can access that through these nine stages of bhakti.
We are talking about starting from faith, moving onwards towards love. That's how we can connect with God directly. Okay, now I wanted to make an announcement since we're running out of time.
So if you guys have a name on that paper with two questions on it, you turn them in to me, you're going to get these extra credit points, which are significant points. And if you would like to stick around for a few minutes after class, please do that with us. But in the meantime, let's thank our guest speaker for coming out here and telling us his philosophy.
I'm really glad you came out. There was a lot of heavy stuff you were doing right there. And a lot of it mixed in with a lot of stuff we've been studying in the past couple of weeks.
And so next class, we're going to be talking about religious experience. What would be going on there? Yeah, the gods are hunters who eat meat. Well, as I said that there is a bottom-up conceptualization of God.
And there's a top-down revelation of God. That means that God can choose to reveal himself. Going back to the earlier example of the president, if you want to approach the president, the president can choose to give an interview where the president explains who I am and what I stand for.
But along with that, each one of us has our own concept of what the president is. What the president stands for. So, like that, people will have their own conceptualizations of God.
And the conceptualization of God may not necessarily be in agreement with the reality of God. That's why I say that even if people may worship one God, but they don't necessarily worship the same God. You say we are all worshipping one God, but we are not worshipping the same God.
So, I would say that based on people's own conceptions of what the divine should be, they may come up with some conceptions. Now, depending on what is the result of that conception on their life, if that makes them follow some level of morality to some extent, makes them more regulated, less violent, less exploitative, then that is good. But ultimately, the conceptualization of God can only take us this far.
It's like by our own conception, how much can we understand the president? But when we know the president as a person, when the president chooses to connect with us, then we can get to know them much better. So, that's why there is a top-down revelation. That's why Krishna advises in Bhagavad Gita, if you just focus on me, rather than on the Devas, that's the best thing to do.
That's true. And this top-down revelation, we can access that through these nine stages of bhakti. We are talking about starting from faith, going onwards towards love.
That's how we can connect with God directly. OK. Now, I wanted to make an announcement since we are running out of time.
So, we have different traditions worshipping different gods. So, are they worshipping gods in the Vedic tradition, in the broad Indian tradition or worshipping something different? See, I will talk about this at three levels. First is at the conceptual or philosophical, then at the historical and then at the emotional or personal level.
So, the conceptual level, the bhakti tradition, it talks about God as not just one being. Broadly, we think of two schools of thought with respect to God. There is polytheism and there is monotheism.
So, you could talk about, you could extend this and talk about four levels. One is that there is no God. Atheism.
Then above that there are many gods. That's polytheism. Then there is one God.
That is monotheism. And the bhakti understanding is not monotheism actually. It's about this.
There is only God. There is only God means that our existence is also not separate from God. We are all parts of God.
Matter, the stable is also an energy of the divine. So, in fact, everyone is considered to be godly because everyone is a part of God. So, from the philosophical perspective, if we consider anybody that there is one God but he has many manifestations.
So, the theological term we use for this is polymorphic monotheism. Polymorphic. Morphi is form, poly is many.
So, there is one God who can have many manifestations. So, even the devas, the gods, the small g and plural, they are also considered at one level a manifestation of God. So, if somebody can't worship the supreme being, if you consider this to be like a pyramid and there is one divine being who is the source of everyone and everything, the source of all virtues, all good qualities, all attractiveness.
But then that one divine being manifests in different ways. So, but one God manifests in different forms and these forms may also attract worship in their own ways. So, when somebody is worshipping Indra or somebody is worshipping Shiva, it is understood that they are also worshipping Krishna.
But they do not understand that they are worshipping Krishna. That is why they will not get elevated all the way to that destination. But they will get elevated even by that.
So, in that sense, whatever we are attracted to, it is a spark of God that we are attracted to. But if we do not know that it is a spark of God we are attracted to, then we may not make much spiritual advancement by that. Depending on how much we can connect that spark with the divine, to that extent, we make spiritual advancement.
So, in that sense, it is a very inclusive understanding of God. That's the philosophical perspective. The historical perspective, one of the saints in our tradition, Bhaktivinoda Thakur explains that the one divine is perceived in different ways by people according to their culture, their language, their mentality, their upbringing.
So, all these act like filters or shapers of vision by which we perceive that one divine in different ways. So, whenever any religion comes up with any conception of God, that is the understanding that there is something higher than me, which I need to worship, which I need to appease. So, in that sense, whoever anybody may be worshipping, there may or may not be an exact correlation between the gods in say the Greco-Roman pantheon or in the Vedic pantheon.
But the idea is by worshipping some being higher than oneself, one can grow spiritually to some extent. I have an interesting question. What if that God is, like for the Norse pantheon, a lot of their gods and goddesses are hunters.
Most of them are hunters. And so those people, they hunted and they ate meat. What happens to you if you cease to reincarnate? God, we live with God in a life of eternal loving joy.
So, God as Krishna is described in the bhakti tradition to be not a person who delights in his godhood, but rather he subordinates his godhood for the purpose of love. So, Krishna, if you have seen the various pictures, he doesn't act as if he is God you bow down to be. He is not like some old being sitting sternly in the clouds and passing judgments.
He takes on various roles. And the devotees take on various roles. And within those roles, everybody enjoys reciprocation of love.
So, it's like an eternal play of love. Somebody might be a millionaire, but in a play they might take the role of a pauper. And in that role, as if they are with their loved ones, others are playing roles, they enjoy that role.
So, in the kingdom of God is an eternal play of love. And we join that play. Anybody else? Yes.
Do Hindus consider themselves as idol worshippers? OK. So, are the Hindus consider themselves idol worshippers? You know, sometimes Christians and Muslims criticize. So, the word idol has a particular connotation, which conveys the idea of some stone image or image that is being worshipped and that is forbidden in the Abrahamic religions, not worship a graven image.
So, the understanding here in the bhakti tradition is that God makes himself accessible in various ways to us. And the stone images, we use the word deity to describe the embodiment of God in matter. So, the idea is God makes himself accessible in various ways to us.
And one way in which he makes himself accessible is as the deity, as the stone or marble or whatever images they are. So, no Hindu will call themselves idol worshipper because the understanding is this is not just a statue or a bust. There is a whole sacred process by which the divine is invited to manifest in that particular image.
So, we all understand that this is stone. When we go to a temple, we see a stone image, stone. But we understand it is not just stone.
Two examples to illustrate this. A hundred dollar note is also a piece of paper. An ordinary piece of paper, we may tear it up.
But if somebody starts tearing a hundred dollar note, what are you doing? Why? It is also paper, but it is more than paper. And a child who has no understanding of currency or a tribal who has no understanding of currency, you people, why do you value this paper so much? It would make no sense to them. Similarly, if there is an ordinary statue, that's like an ordinary paper.
But the deity manifestation is like a currency note where by a special process, say, in this case, the Federal Bank of America or whatever has authorized that currency note. And that's how that currency note acquires special value. Similarly, the deity, the image is sanctified by inviting the divine to manifest.
And the bhakti tradition considers that God is so accommodating that he wants us to experience him fully. And thus, when he manifests in a particular form, we can behold him with his eyes, we can garland him, we can dress him, we can worship him, we can relate with him as a person. And that creates more of a personal bond with the divine.
So, the other example is that it's like a letterbox. If you just make a box outside your home and put some letters there, they are not going to go to their destination. But the government authorized letterbox, you put your letters there, they will reach their destination.
Similarly, the deity is not a stone image. It is made of stone, but it is the divine who is invited to manifest through the stone. And thus, it becomes a way to connect with the divine.
Hey, I've got a question for you. You know, there are a lot of….