ARTICLE BY RADHASHYAM BRAHAMCHARI
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[aryayouthgroup] Muslim Brothers of Indian Subcontinent : It’s Time for Homecoming - III
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RADHASYAM BRAHMACHARI
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Muslim Brothers of Indian Subcontinent : It’s Time for Homecoming - III
By Dr Radhasyam Brahmachari
Hindu God Brahman
The entire Hindu culture, religious ideas, social customs and the way of life etc. are based on the single belief in the existence of one absolute and imperishable Being Brahman. Advaita Vedānta says that Brahman is the the Cosmic Consciousness, It is the ultimate reality of this creation and is the Divine Being. According to Vedanta, that imperishable (sat) is Brahman, while perishable (asat) is the entire phenomenal world. In this universe at large and in every being, there is a ground for that absolute Being, which is impervious to change. According to Vedanta, this phenomenal world is nothing but innumerable manifestations of the same imperishable One (Brahaman).
So Rishi Shandilya in Chhandogya Upanisad says, “The whole universe is Brahma. Let man in all tranquility revere It as Tajjalan- or That from which all other things are born, into which they dissolve and in which they breathe and move” (III-14-1). “All works, all desires, all scents, all tastes belong to It. It encompasses the whole universe and does not speak and has no ear” (III-14-5). “As a spider emits and reabsorbs its threads, as plants grow upon the earth, as hair grows on the body and head of a living person, so does everything on earth arises from This Imperishable” (Mundaka, I-1-7). “All things pervading is that Blessed Lord. That (imperishable Brahman) is the beginning and is penetrating everywhere” (Svet, III-11). “All this world is That (imperishable Brahman) and what was and what is yet to be” (Svet, III-15). “It is That alone, who approaches every womb, in Whom alone does this universe grow together and dissolve” (Svet, IV-11).
This Cosmic Consciousness Brahman is Immensely Vast, as vast as the universe and at the same time finer than the finest. “The Lord of the constituents of nature, It is the cause of the universe” (Svet, VI-16). “The one Lord in all contingent beings hidden, pervading all, in all beings the innermost self, of all works the overseer …(Svet,VI-11). “More subtle than the subtle, in the midst of chaos of all things. It emanates- how manifold It’s forms” (Svet, IV-20). “It cannot be comprehended by the eye, by speech or by any other senses” (Mundaka, III-1-8). “Eternal among the eternals, Consciousness among the consciousness, the One among the many” (Svet, VI-13). In all the above verses, the Hindu God Brahman is referred to as It, and not as He or She. And hence it proves that, Brahman is genderless.
In this context, it would be relevant here to quote Yajnavalkya, a great Hindu seer, while he explains Brahman to another lady seer Gargi in the Brihadaranyaka Upanisad. He says, “Gargi, that which is above the sky, which is below the earth, which is in between the sky and the earth – that which men speak of as past, present and future, that is woven on space, wrap and woof” (III-8-7). “Gargi, It is what the Brahmanas call the Imperishable. That is not coarse, not fine, not short nor long, not red nor adhesive. It casts no shadow and It is not darkness. It is not wing nor is It space. It is not attached to anything. It is not without energy (tejas) or life (prana). It is no force or measure. It has no within or without. Nothing does it consume nor is It consumed by anyone” ( Briha: III-8-8). From the above verses, it becomes clear that the Hindu God Brahman is formless, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent.
In scientific terms, Brahman is neither matter nor energy. It is the formless, eternal, absolute, imperishable Being which is impervious to any change. This Divine Being is the primeval substance of all contingent beings, very subtle – finer than the finest. It embraces the entire space and time and at the same time, is invariant to any transformation of space and time.
We have seen earlier that the Islamic (as well as the Christian) God is, more or less, a sexually capable male human being. Particularly Islamic Allah is 60 cubit tall. Above all, both Christian God and Islamic Allah have worldly attributes like vengeance, envy, cruelty and so on. It has been mentioned earlier that such a God cannot be eternal and he is bound to get older with time and ultimately perish like all other living beings.
Science is the process of knowing two fundamental entities of nature, namely matter and energy, with the help of senses. Furthermore, according to Einstein, these two entities reduce to a single entity, either matter or energy. But Vedanta says that the fundamental constituent of this universe is neither matter nor energy, but an absolute Divine Being, which is consciousness and cannot be perceived by the senses. The notion is supported by the well known Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Mechanics. On the other haqnd, according to Vedanta, Matter and energy are nothing but two aspects of that Divine Being. Scientists indirectly admit the existence of this Divine Being when they say that the elementary particles, the ultimate constituent of matter, will always remain mysterious to human intelligence as they are point masses occupying no space at all. Furthermore, the scientists admit the Vedantic view and say that the elementary particles, constituent of crude matter, seems to be individually conscious.
Dr. Roger Penrose, the well known Oxford mathematician, has upheld the said Vedāntic view and has said, “Consciousness may arise from quantum mechanical phenomena – the laws that govern the behaviour of the subatomic particles”. Furthermore, Vedāntic seers have said long long ago that this Supreme Consciousness Brahman “cannot be comprehended by the sight, by the speech or by any other senses”, and Dr. Penrose and Dr. Sutherland simply confirm this conclusion of the seers when the former asserts, “Perhaps human mind will never be able to comprehend human mind”, and the latter says, “It is impossible to specify what it (consciousness) is, what it does, or how it evolved”.
The Hindu or the Vedantic God Brahman is best described by five verses of the Kena Upanisad which read, “There no eye can penetrate. No voice, no mind can penetrate. … That, which cannot be expressed by speech. By Which speech itself is uttered. That, which mind cannot think. By which mind is thought. That which eye cannot see. By which the eyes have sight. That which ears cannot hear. By which ear is heard. That, which breathes not by the breath. By which breath is drawn in. That is Brahman…..” (translated by.R. C. Zaenner). Thus according to Hindu view, consciousness is the Brahman, Consciousness is the God Almighty and It is also the soul or Ātman and our sense Self, Whom one can perceive only through pursuit of pure knowledge, or by yoga and meditation, or by deep devotion.
According to Islam or Christianity, Allah or God resides in heaven and He controls the worldly phenomena by some type of remote control. But according to Hinduism, the Divine Consciousness Brhaman is the primeval constituent of this material world and Beyond this Consciousness there is nothing whatsoever, no other thing. This Supreme Consciousness Barhman controls every worldly phenomena from within and hence no external agent is needed for the purpose. Or in other words, the Divine Consciousness Brahman controls the microscopic phenomena here and also controls the distant cosmological phenomena there. So, Vedanta says, “What is here. That is there. (Katha, II-1-10). Aaccording to Vedanta, the Cosmic Consciousness Brahman is the ultimate cause behind every physical phenomenon and says, “This is the Lord of all. This is the Omniscient. This is the inner controller and both the origin and the end of all contingent beings” (Mandukya- 6).
According to Indian school of thought, Atma or Brahman is ever free (mukta) and hence It cannot possess any attribute. Otherwise, That Brahman being the subject of the attribute, would have been in intimate bondage with the attribute, as heat cannot be separated from fire (Samkhya Pravachana Sutram, I-54). The point may be explained by the following example. Suppose a man is holding the chain of a dog. The common notion is that the man is free but the dog is bound to the man through the chain. But according to the Hindu view, the man is equally bound to the dog through the same piece of chain. From this viewpoint, Atma, as It is eternal and not susceptible to changes, cannot possess any worldly attribute.
There is another concept in Hinduism which is absent either in Islam or in Christianity, and that is the concept of Avatara. The literal meaning is “one who descends”. Both the Christian God and Allah send messengers to the earth to propagate their teachings to human beings. But in Hinduism, Brahman Itself comes down to the earth as an Avatara to guide man during a crisis. There are many kinds of Avataras, according to their closeness to godhood. But Lord Krishna of Dwaraka is believed to be the purest and most Divine among the Avataras.
There is another point to highlight in this context. Both Islamic Allah and the Christian God seem to be extremely biased. Allah is Rahmanir Rahim or kind and compassionate only to the Muslims alone and to the non-Muslim kafirs, He is a cruel killer, a ferocious demon and a violent despot. He is determined to heap inhuman torture and atrocities on them either in this world or in His hell. The Christian God is equally cruel to the heathens. But the Hindu God Lord Krishna treats His children, equally and says, “In all contingent beings the same am I; none do I hate and none do I fondly love. But those who worship Me with devotion, I am in them (Bhagavad-Gita: (9.39).
From the above mentioned discussions, it becomes evident that the concept of God in Hinduism is based on extremely subtle philosophical arguments and scientific reasoning.
In fact, there is not in a single instance where a scientific finding has ever gone against the conclusions of Vedanta. On the contrary, it is assisting one to understand Vedanta in a better way. As a matter of fact, science is playing the role of a laboratory to prove the truth contained in Vedanta. On the other hand, the concept of God (Allah) in Islam is extremely crude, illogical, unscientific and childish, and hence it is not possible for a rational mind to accept such a God.
The basic task of science is to present a qualitative and quantitative description of nature, but due to its inherent limitations it is unable to accomplish its task beyond a certain limit. According to the Nobel Lauriat French physicist de Broglie, philosophy is destined to guide human intelligence after this limit, but he failed to ascertain which philosophy is to play that role. Many believe that, considering the entirety as well as completeness of thought, Hinduism is destined to take that sacred and historical responsibility. Days are not very far away when science will have to admit the existence of divinity (Brahman) in every speck dust, in every atom and in every molecule, as visualized by the Vedantic seers (Rishis) thousands of years ago.
Apart from that, Hinduism is most humane among all the religions on earth as the Hindu God does propagate hatred. The Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD), is a NGO, which is working for peace and amity between the people of these two neighboring countries. In November 21-22, 1998, it was holding its yearly convention at Peshwar, Pakistan. On that occasion the Pakistani delegate Dr Abdul Karim Naik, in his address, said, “Only the message of the Upanisads is capable of removing discriminations among the human race created on the basis of religion and nationality. Only Upanisads consider the entire humanity as a family and every person living in this world as a member of the world family.” So, it is evident that the God of Islam, Allah, Who divides the humanity into believers and non-believers (kafirs) and propagates hatred towards the kafirs, is incapable of producing lasting peace in this world. But it is a pity that the converted Muslims of this country are worshiping a God, fit to be worshipped by the illiterate and pastoral Bedouins Arabia. In fact, Allah is not a God at all. He is a cruel killer, whose eyes are always red-shot with. In short, He is a demon and is trying to establish Himself as the God of this world (not of the universe) with the help of the mujahidin through terror and bloodshed. So, it is better, sooner they reject that Arabian God and come to the God of their ancestors.
“From unreal lead me to real,
From darkness lead me to light,
From death lead me to immortality” (Briha, I-3-28).
Briha - Brihadaranyaka Upanisad
Isha - Isha Upanisad
Katha - Katha Upanisad
Mandukya - Mandukya Upanisad
Mundaka - Mundaka Upanisad
Samkhya - Samkhya Pravachanasutram
Svet - Svetasvatara Upanisad
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To be continued
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posted by SHER SINGH AGRAWAL @ 9:23 AM
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