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Hinduism and Christianity
Prelude: Hindu quotations of interreligious topics Rigveda: Rabindranath Tagore: Mahatma Gandhi: Ram Adhar Mall: Ram Adhar Mall: Saying from Bali: These statements in the context of Hinduism should stimulate everyone,
who is open-minded about interreligious dialogue and life, to reflect.
Astonishingly, Hinduism seems to be the religion many Christians
have difficulties to cope with. There are a lot of reasons for this
phenomena. For example, Christians mainly define their religion
literally. They are concerned with their denomination. Hindus pursue
their religion rather within their rituals. They do not know dogmatic
determination. While Christians must believe in certain things -
in dogmas, Hindus must do certain things - rituals. (Though existing
determinations are generalisations, they tend to be true.)
Christianity: Christians considering themselves as people who believe
in just one god - they think they are monotheists. They also think
that Indians believe in many gods, thus they are polytheists. A
majority of the followers of the three book religions (Jews, Christians
and Muslims) still agree on thinking that monotheism is superior
to polytheism. However, this is an assumption hardly anyone asks
for a reason. Why is the belief in one deity considered to be superior
to the belief in many deities? After all, democracy was created by people who worshipped a great
number of deities - the Greeks. Strict monotheism is among other things
the concept of a society ruled by a severe autocrat. Hinduism: The universe of the Hindus is populated by many deities. However, not every Hindu worships every deity. A Hindu has his individual god Ishtadewata (wishful thinking), who is either chosen by himself or assigned to him. Besides, if Hindus talk about god, they mean something different by it as the book holders. In contrast to Yahweh, God or Allah Hindu deities are subjected to the cycle of growth and decay like other creatures. The uncreated and imperishable god of the Hindus is their ultimate reality. It is (in the Indian languages) Ishvara, who is the imaginable characteristic of the omnipresent Brahman for the people. And what about the individual gods and goddesses? (They are rather alike what Orthodoxs and Catholics understand by saints and Mahayana-Buddhists by Boddhisatwas.) Finally, they are just fractional manifestations of the last prime cause. Hindus understand all deities (Christian God, Allah, Yahweh, the gods of the different nations in Africa and Asia as well as their own Hindu Gods) as manifestations of one or several aspects of the divine prime cause. The individual deities are like emanations of the Brahman. They contain more Brahman as the people, in whom Ishvara operates too. In this case, Indian polytheism is also monotheism, or maybe - as the divine prime cause is omnipresent - pantheism. The individual
Indian gods cannot be compared with Allah or God. The Hindu
equivalent of God or Allah is rather ultimate reality, called
Isvara or Brahman. Incidentally, you should not mistake Brahman
for Brahma. Brahma is a deity and like all deities just one
aspect, a partial manifestation of the absolute Brahman. Within
the Indian trinity - Brahma, Wishnu, Shiva - Brahma is the creative
principle.
In Islam distress
and death are assigned to Satan and hell.
How can you explain the existence of evil? Can a deity be evil? Christianity: Christians have a dual system. God represents the good par excellence: The whole evil comes from ungodly countervailing power. Emerged from the apostasy of God, the evil is eliminated at the end of the story. (There are also views - for example the one of Origenes - based on the assumption of the evil's catharsis and its turning to good). The world affairs, the whole course of history, is dominated by two antagonistic powers, two opposed causes (Dualism). Before time begins and after it has stopped, there is just one cause for everything: God (Monism). A Question remained, which is in fact frequently asked critically: "How can God, representing the good par excellence, tolerate the evil and its baleful effects?" World affairs are the product of a duel between opposed powers. Hinduism: The divine prime cause is the reason of every being. It is the origin of salvation as well as perdition. In that vein, Hindus know the reason for everything, so they are Monists. Here too, a question remained: If the evil is an indispensable part of creation, it ought to be unimportant for the salvation of man, whether he acts good or evil. Though, it is different: The salvation of the cycle of rebirths is only reached by collecting good karma (sum of actions). The Bridge: In their views about the prime antagonisms of good and evil, light and shadows, day and night and so on - an irresolvable antagonism as well as a necessary requirement for one another - Christians and Hindus are very different - at least in theory. In praxis, however, a Hindu is committed to good action like a Christian. The existence of evil cannot ultimately be resolved in explanations. It is impossible with dualistic and monistic philosophy. Moreover, there are even annotations in the New Testament which seem to assume that the existence of the evil is a necessity. "Just look at my traitor's hand which is above the table as well. Indeed the son of man left as it was decided, but woe betide the man who will betray him (Lucas 12, 22-23, alike Mathaeus 26, 24 , Marcus 14,21). Christianity is with regard to deities monotheistic, but concerning the philosophy about origin and the relation of good and evil dualistic. Hinduism is pantheistic and monistic. Does the world surrounding us really exists or is it just an illusion?  Christianity:
In Christian religion, the historicity of man's salvation events is
emphasised. That is the reason for the fact that "Pontius becomes
a part of the credo". "Crucified under Pontius Pilatus,
resurrected, ascended into heaven." Pilatus is a historic linchpin,
which defines the salvation fundaments for man. This historic approach
leads inevitably to the fact that Christian tradition understands
world affairs and the world which surrounds us - the things we can
see and touch - as real in a naïve way. The neurology does not
agree with this view. According to neurology, real things in the outside
world just produce pictures and views in the brain, certain concepts,
which every being experiences in a more or less different way. Certain
electric magnetic waves lead to the perception of red or yellow. Red
and yellow are not real, but a reaction caused by real electric magnetic
waves. Hinduism: According to Hinduism, the world is a "Maya"-Illusion. It is created by the acting of the divine prime cause. (Mauve - the dalliance of the deities is the existence of the world.) You can understand the Indian view on reality as a film, projected by Avidya's ignorance onto the perception area of our brain. (Interestingly, the Indian film industry is the biggest in the world). Having overcome ignorance, man acknowledges that the things he thought to notice are just a Fata Morgana, under which the divine prime cause is located that includes everything. The Bridge: You cannot prove scientifically, if the world exists or it is just an illusion. It is provable, however, that our senses do not realise the real world, but a picture our senses made of the world. Christians believe that reality exists, while Hindus recognise that reality is just an illusion. Today's Christians have difficulties with accepting dogmas - a thing unknown to Hindus - which require you to accept that events, which constitute the belief, like the resurrection of Jesus are historic events. Hindus, by contrast, are indifferent towards the question if a tale about a deity is historic or just a myth. Nobody expects him to believe that some holy event must be historically proved. In the question of reality, there are significant differences between Christians and Hindus too. However, the Hindus' perception can offer incentives to consider, if Christians can acquire a taste for myths as well - for example, of Christmas or the resurrection? Re-mythologising instead of (the senseless) entmythologising with its focus on the "historic Jesus"! Do Christians practise love? And do Hindus know what love is? Christianity: Christian's triple commandment of love - for god, fellow men and oneself - should be in the centre of the Christian proclamation and way of life. History and the current situation, however, reveal that it does not apply very often. On the other hand, Christian views have promoted actions which overcame social boundaries and classes (while institutions which called themselves Christian have introduced new hierarchies with its class antagonisms and supported them at the same time!). There are also Christians who are giving aid in former colonised countries without having missionary intends on their minds. That is real Christian love. In the course of Christianity's history, it is mostly distinguished between heavenly and earthly love in a strict way. There are exceptions. Jesus' allegory of the smart and foolish virgins uses the weeding as an allegory for heavenly beatitude. Mystical schools of thinking in eastern and western Christianity - by the way, likewise in Islam - do understand heavenly beatitude and the condition of mystical emotion as a kind of erotic ecstasy. Hinduism: In India, there are different kinds of affections, which represent approximately the western's expression love. Bhakti means the devotion to a chosen deity, mostly to Wishnu or its forms of appearances like Krishna or Rama. The devotion to Krishna includes eavesdropping to his words, murmuring his name and finally the complete surrender of ones soul to the deity. An expression of Krishna says that: I am the origin of everything,
everything moves inside me. Thinking like that, the sages love me fraught with devotion. Thinking about me, living for me awakening each other talking about me eternally, they are pleased and happy. Especially the stories about Krishna allude to god's love for man and man's love for god in erotic pictures, which include waggish flirting, dancing and fonding. In the so called Indian dances - like in the Bharata Natyam - the female dancer assumes firstly the role of a glowing lover who desires with all her heart her beloved, the Lord Krishna, than she assumes the shape of the god fraught with passion. A person who is glowingly in love with Krishna is the princess and poet Mira Bay. Earthly love - the union of husband and wife - becomes a symbol of the world's creation: The ancestral unit of god collapses into a fatherly and a motherly being. They give themselves up to each other, thereby creating the world or - to be more precise - this dalliance itself is course of the world. On the other hand, lovers celebrate with their union the creation of the world as well as the longed for final unification of man with the deity. That is the reason, why there are erotic drawings in a large number of temples (especially in Khajuraho, Konarak, Buvaneshvar). With regard to the motives, the drawings would seem quite daring in the views of a superficial observer. Though, the aesthetic style distinguishes them from any kind of pornography. The Bridge: The wish for an union and the emotion to be an unit with the deity as well as with the follow men and furthermore with all creatures is an essential religious feeling in Hinduism. This is not so easy to understand for person from the west. On the other hand, the feeling of the unit with god and the alive world corresponds to Christians' love for god and charity: The Hindu feels united with another person, while the Christian accepts another person, embraces him in his ambit. Promoters of the Neo-Hinduism movement have criticised that the unity does not incite the Hindus to a convenient degree of active charity. Therefore, they tried to increase the importance of active charity in Hindu-Society. Ramakrishna calls emphatically for seeing the god in the suffering fellow men and helping them. We have here an absolutely good example for a successful exchange between the religions. In Christianity there has been drawn a clear line between heavenly and earthly love. In this respect, it would be time to learn a thing or two from Hinduism. All kinds of love come from god and are accepted by god.  Tolerance
or dominance?Christianity: Christian as well as Islamic denominations tend to the assumption that only their religion offers salvation (although Islam concedes the possibility of salvation to the followers of Judaism and Christianity). Just recently, there are efforts for a interreligious ecumenism. Here the spirit of Christian love and fraternalism would be represented, if the different religions are seen as equal. Hinduism: From a Hindu's point of view, all religions are different paths to pursue the same goal. Therefore, Hindus are generally religiously tolerant. This is still applicable despite the fact that there have recently been some Hindu-groups which used their religion as a political instrument. The fact that the society is divided into classes - jati - which are awarded different standards of purity], forms a certain contrast to this tolerance. The groups which are regarded as impure had and still have just a limited access to religious rituals and knowledge. In this respect, however, drastic changes can be observed currently. The Bridge: On the one hand there are Christians who have begun to seek for an equal dialogue with the other religions and there are Christians with conservative views who even refuse interreligious devotions strictly. On the other hand, Indian religious philosophers have been striven since the 18. Century towards a reduction of the barriers between classes and sexes. These ambitions are supported by the Indian state, which has abolished caste system officially - however, they are not always approved by the conservative parts of the Indian society. Text: Guenter Spitzing, Translation into English: Thorsten Wojczewski |
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Is there one deity or are there many deities?
