Nature of God in Western religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam)

If you refer to websites to describe the nature of God in western religions you get the following responses

Judaism: From Judaism 101

God is just and merciful.
God is omniscient, omnipresent.

God is one etc.

Christianity: (From God on the net.com)

Supreme being

Unique

eternal

self existence, etc.


However these attributes are given by the religious ministers. If you study the scriptures you find that the nature of God described in the old testament is in direct contradiction.

Let's analyze the different stories of the Old testament and evaluate the nature of God.

1) Adam and Eve: God forbade Adam and Eve to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. However they still did and hence He banned them from paradise.

The Judaic description of God is that He is forgiving, then why didn't he forgive Adam and Eve.
Also it seems like God is a little insecure of Adam and Eve obtaining knowledge. If God is infinite and omniscient why is He afraid. Also why did He have the tree of knowledge there in the first place and why wasn't it guarded. So too many loop holes, anyway it is just a fairy tale.


2) Cain and Abel: Cain offered grain and Abel offered a lamb as a sacrifice. God did not accept Cain's offerings and only accepted Abel's. This led Cain to be jealous and he killed Abel.

Seems like God bent on killing animals. I think this is probably due to the fact that the Babylonians and Persians would offer fruit and vegetables, in fact even Hindus would do this. Since the Jewish Rabbis didn't want the people to follow these rituals they made this story so they would continue to sacrifice animals. The poor lamb.

3) Noah: God wants to destroy all men and he creates a flood that engulfs the entire planet only Noah's family survives who save all teh animals in a boat (ark).

Again God doesn't seem very benevolent and forgiving here.

4) Nimrod and the tower of Babel: Nimrod builds the tower of Babel attempting to reach the heaven. God destroys the tower and people spread all over the place.

If God is truly infinite, omnipresent then why does He have to be afraid of a guy building a tower. Doesn't make sense.

I guess this was a response to the pyramid building activities of Egypt and the Jewish Rabbis felt it to be a waste of time, so they made this story.

5) Abraham: God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. He stops him at the last minute and he wants all males to be circumcised as a covenant with God.

Richard Dawkins refers to this incident in his book the God Delusion as God being a child molester and a torturer.

The Jewish Rabbis made this story up to make sure that the Jews would do anything that they (God) asks them to do even sacrifice their own son if God (rabbis) wanted.

6) Joshua: God asked Joshua to kill all the Canaanites including male, female and children.

This is clearly a genocide. Richard Dawkins highlights this in his book.

In fact there was a study conducted for Jewish children. Half of the audience was provided a story of the Torah and asked if it was genocide, they said no as it was religious.

The other half was asked a similar story and except for Joshua a Chinese emperor had done a similar thing. They responded that it was genocide.

7) Ten commandments: God indicates that He is jealous and doesn't want people to follow other Gods.

Again here if God is truly great and infinite why is he jealous and insecure.

Thus we can see that the stories indicate a God who is insecure, jealous, genocidal, child molester and afraid of competition.

These are totally opposite of a God who is truly infinite, omnipresent and omniscient.

Purpose of life, The conflict of Dharma and Moksha.

For a Hindu there are two lower or physical goals of life and two higher goals.

The lower goals are kama (love) and artha (wealth). The higher goals are Dharma (Duty) and Moksha (Salvation).

Westerners typically indicate this being the religious pursuit. However this is not a religious goal but merely a philosophy of life just like you have the human resource theory of Maslow's hierarchical needs which start from the lowest physiological needs to the self actualization need.

1) Kama means love. The love here refers to the physical attraction and doesn't refer to the love or devotion one feels towards God.

The Kamasutra or the book of love making has achieved infamous popularity in the west. Many westerners think of this as being a religious book taught at the temple. The orientalist British would raise their eyebrows and use this as a reason to put Hinduism as a degenerate immoral society. Even Wendy Doniger in her book Hindus, an Alternative History states that this book being very popular among the Indians. She quoted that Brahmins would read the Vedas in the morning and would read the Kamasutra at night with their spouse.

Please note that neither of these are true. The Kamasutra was written not as a religious book but as a book for professionals. This book was primarily read by the concubines and the courtesans of the Kings and the rich noblemen who would practice the principles in the book.

For the ordinary folk especially Brahmins it was and still is taboo. The Brahmin community especially served as exemplars to the rest of the people. This is another example of western scholars categorizing everything written in India as being part of the Hindu religion and attempting to put Hinduism down. There are several books on science that were written outside of the religious canon, such as Ayurveda, etc.

2) Artha: Artha means wealth, but it can also refer to power, status and respect in society. There is a great book called ArthaShastra by Kautilya that documents the science of keeping power. This has been compared to the Art of War by Sun Tzu and the Prince by Machiavelli.

Although the above two are referred to as pursuits, typically they serve as distractions for people who are looking to serve the important goals namely dharma or to perform one's duty or one seeking Moksha. In fact there are many stories in the Puranas of ascetics meditating to obtain Moksha and how Indra would send the heavenly damsels to distract them. Both Artha and Kama are referred to as works of Maya, which means illusion. They are temporary and don't last. The ones who pursue them are not aware of the true nature of reality.

Only the pursuit of Dharma and Moksha are the true pursuits of life.

3) Dharma: Hinduism originally divided the people into 4 varnas or castes. Each Varna had a specific duty to the community and that was the Dharma of that particular Caste.

For the Brahmins, the learned and the priestly caste it was important to perform rituals for the well being of the entire community. Thus it was important that they study the Vedas, perform sacrifices and other rituals, teach the rest of the community, maintain the temples, etc.
They also served as examples for the entire community. They were forbidden from consuming meat and had to keep fasts and several other rituals. They also had to maintain purity both physical and ritual purity. This is because they were communicating with the Gods when performing rituals or as priests they were the ones who would touch the idols, bathe them, perform poojas etc.


For the Kshatriya or the warrior and Kings, it was important to maintain law and order and to protect the kingdom from its enemies. This was an important caste, it even states that without a King it would be the law of the fishes i.e. might is right.

The Vaishya or the business and the trading community, it was important to conduct the business, collect taxes, maintain land etc.

The Shudras or the working people were responsible for various jobs from working in the field to being barbers and shoe makers. There are a number of Jatis within this group and each Jati for one particular function e.g. there is a jati for tailors, potters etc. The advantage being that the trade secrets for the profession would only be known to the members of that community.

Westerners typically condemn the caste system as being too restrictive and oppressive. But in reality, although it is outdated in today's modern world, the caste system provided an amazing stability for the different professions. E.g. only a shoe maker's son could become a shoe maker. Thus he didn't have to worry about finding a job like we have to do in a democratic society.

For women the duty was to raise the family, take care of the house, the kitchen, the elders and so on.

Thus for each member of the community, they had a particular duty to serve and this was his/her dharma. By performing one's duty well, he/she is doing good karma and is expected to be rewarded in this or the next life.

4) Moksha: This is the highest pursuit of life and leads to liberation from samsara or the cycle of birth and death.

A distinct class of people called sadhus in India, started moving away from the cities and villages and dwelling in the forests, meditating and seeking answers to questions. The concept of moksha or liberation came from these people.

Buddha and Mahavira founded Buddhism and Jainism respectively by following the paths of these sadhus or rishis in the forests. Both these religions promoted the aspect of liberation by meditation and by giving up everything one owns. Desire became a key word. As I mentioned earlier Kama and Artha were considered as two desires that one should avoid and seek the pursuit of Moksha or Nirvana (the Buddhist and Jaina term for liberation).

As a result more and more people started leaving their houses in pursuit of Moksha. There was a need to preserve order and continuity in society.

Now I come to an important topic that is the argument of Dharma and Moksha.
There were philosophers or proponents of Dharma who came up with many arguments for the preservation of Dharma.

Here is a story that was told to highlight why one needs to follow Dharma.

The story goes that a man leaves to the forest leaving his family in the pursuit of Moksha. He comes across a place where he finds his ancestors hanging upside down and hanging just by a string with a bottomless dark pit below. His ancestors tell him that since the man left his dharma i.e. his duty towards his community and to raise a family, they cannot be reborn and hence will have to end up in a bottomless pit for eternity. The man goes back and starts a family to preserve his dharma. (It is generally believed that a person is reborn in his own family lineage sometimes also referred to as one's Gothram)


Here is a counter argument from the proponents of Moksha.

The story goes that a man performs his duty very well and is rewarded with life in heaven. He asks Indra if his good life in heaven would last forever. Indra replies that it would only last until the benefits of his Karma last. After that he would have to go back to earth and be reborn as a human being. The only thing that lasts forever is Moksha. Thus it was generally agreed that it was the highest pursuit to obtain Moksha which could be obtained only by meditating in the forest. However it was also necessary to preserve the continuity of the human race and the civilization.

Two alternative philosophies were proposed to address this

1) Varnashrama Dharma: This divides life into 4 stages. The first stage being that of a student and the objective is to obtain knowledge typically for the profession or caste that one will perform. This is the knowledge or the Vidya stage of life. The second stage is that of a householder. One has to marry, start a family, at the same time serve the community by performing the duties or the dharma for his/her caste. The third stage is that of retirement, when one's children have grown up he along with his wife would move to a smaller dwelling and live a humble life, performing prayers and offering devotion to their deities. This is the Bhakti phase of life. Finally one leaves everything and dwells in the forest for pure meditation to attain Moksha. Thus this philosophy allowed for individuals to obtain Moksha at the same time serve the community or the Dharma.


2) Then we have the Bhagavad Gita that prescribes a method to obtain Moksha while obtaining knowledge, performing one's dharma or by performing bhakti.

The philosophy is that one should obtain knowledge selflessly i.e. knowledge for the sake of obtaining knowledge.

It also calls for one to perform one's duties selflessly without attachment to the rewards (which are either in the form of Artha or Kama). It is called Karma Yoga or the path of duty. This is probably one of the most well known and most quoted philosophies of Hinduism.

Finally we have the path of Devotion or Bhakti Yoga, which is worship or any deity or idol with pure love and devotion and without attachments or seeking rewards. There is no particular deity that is specified, any form can be worshipped as long as it is done with devotion and purity. This gave rise to the concept of Ishta Devata, i.e. to worship the supreme God via a chosen image or deity. It also states that formless worship is acceptable but it is extremely hard to perform and to concentrate. This maybe seen as aimed towards the Ten Commandments of Judaism which specifically prohibits idol worship and was written around the same time maybe slightly before the Bhagavad Gita.

The path of meditation is not frowned upon, but the Bhagavad Gita states that it is a harder path and there are easier ways to obtain moksha than to surrender to the forest and perform meditation.

Also if you compare to the Varnashrama Dharma, the Gita states that one can obtain Moksha in the first 3 stages of life itself only if one performs these acts selflessly.

Hindus follow the Bhagavad Gita closely than any other book in the Hindu scriptures. Also a combination of the yogas are followed so one follows the Nyaana yoga and Bhakti yoga as a student and later on follows the Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga.

Hindu Phobia among American Scholars in the United States

In this blog I try to explain the concept of Hindu phobia and why researchers and Americans in general are skeptical and suspicious about Hinduism.

Americans first encountered Hinduism in the 60's during the flower power generation. A lot happened in the 60's, the Vietnam war in particular created a whole class of revolutionaries looking for an alternate form of life.

Some of the Hindu gurus at this time helped create a version of Hinduism that promotes sex and drugs. The hippies (as the people from this generation were called) started using Hindu icons especially Krishna and Shiva as an explanation for their lifestyle of drugs, orgies and sex. This was in complete contradiction to the Hinduism that was being practised in India which is based on conservative family values. The family values were similar to the American family values probably more conservative. These values were being spread by the so called "Gurus" who were promoting such activities and using Tantra as the explanation. These activities of the generation at this time created an atmosphere of skepticism and suspicion about Hinduism. It seems like even today despite the end of the so called 60's flower power generation of drugs and sex, there is still doubt in the U.S. on Hinduism. Recently when Deepak Chopra gave a lecture on Hinduism and meditation, one of the ladies in the audience asked whether drugs were necessary to practise Hinduism and to meditate.


This general phobia toward Hinduism is prevalent in the American society and particularly among the researchers and scholars of Hinduism. For e.g. Jeffrey Kripal, one of the professors and scholars of Hindu Tantra and also one of Wendy's former students, did indicate in his blog that he was heavily influenced by the Hippie generation and motivated by the Tantric teachings.

This phobia has resulted in the negative portrayal of Indians and Hinduism in particular in Hollywood and popular culture as well. For e.g. in The Temple of Doom, Steven Spielberg portrayed Indians as feeding on snakes and monkey brains, and also portrayed the image of Kali as a demonic goddess and her followers as black magicians.

In, "Holy Smoke", an innocent Australian teenager (Kate Winslet) is mesmerized (hypnotized) by an Indian Guru and she goes to India. Harvey Keitel is sent to rescue her from this hypnotic trance of the guru and mysticism, again feeding to the popular stereotype of showing Hindu Gurus as the merchants of the devil.

Most of the works by the American Academy, I would argue have this stereotype about Hinduism and are looking to put the religion down because they perceive Hinduism as a threat to the very way of American life and their research serves as a cautionary tale to avoid the preachings of Hinduism at all costs.

For example refer to the following quote by Wendy Doniger.

“The Bhagavad Gita is not as nice a book as some Americans think…Throughout the Mahabharata ... Krishna goads human beings into all sorts of murderous and self-destructive behaviors such as war.... The Gita is a dishonest book …”

-- Wendy Doniger, Professor of History of Religions, University of Chicago.
Quoted in Philadelphia Inquirer, 19 November, 2000.[ i ]



In fact they would go to any lengths, such as mistranslations and purposeful inclusion of sexuality and eroticism even in the most sacred of Hindu scriptures thereby resulting in hurt and pain to countless religious Hindus. All this to abuse Hinduism and Hindus and to warn the Americans against learning these scriptures as they are afraid of the flower power and the sex and drugs to invade the American way of life. And Hindus and Hinduism become victims of their own paranoia.

Rajiv Malhotra in his blog talks about the Wendy's child syndrome.

Here are a few examples of the blatant mistranslations aimed specifically to warn Americans and to prevent Hinduism from making inroads into mainstream American politics and way of life. These were taken from Rajiv's blog describing the Wendy's Child syndrome.

1. Sri Ramakrishna, the 19th century Hindu saint, has been declared by these scholars as being a sexually-abused homosexual, and it has become “academically established” by Wendy Doniger's students that Ramakrishna was a child molester, and had also forced homosexual activities upon Vivekananda. Furthermore, it has become part of this new “discovery” that Ramakrishna's mystical experiences, and indeed those of Hindu mystics in general, are pathological sexual conditions that need to be psychoanalyzed as such. Furthermore, these scholars have concluded that the entire Hindu society needs to be psychoanalyzed in terms of sexual deviance, in order to understand modern Indian society and politics objectively.

2. The Hindu Goddess is described by these scholars as a sex maniac, with a variety of pathological conditions. Western scholars are busy debating which kinds of pathologies best apply in specific instances, and are hard at work to capture supporting data in the backwaters of Indian society.

3. Other conclusions by these well-placed scholars include: Ganesha's trunk symbolizes a “limp phallus”; his broken tusk is a symbol for the castration-complex of the Hindu male; his large belly is a proof of the Hindu male's enormous appetite for oral sex. Shiva, is interpreted as a womanizer, who encourages ritual rape, prostitution and murder, and his worship is linked to violence and destruction.

4. Hindus are being profiled by these scholars, potentially setting them up for denial of the same human rights as the “civilized West.” For instance, anthropologists have concluded that nursing Hindu mothers do not bond with their babies the way white women do, that Hindus lack a sense of individuality because of their inability to perceive separation in space or time, and that the Mahabharata is best seen as Krishna's Genocide.


If these scholars had reached similar conclusions about Islam, I can guarantee that they would be hiding for the rest of their lives from the Fatwah that would be issued. Hinduism however doesn't have any such position. Our philosophy of non violence helped us win independence from the British however it isn't helping our cause in this case.

Also it has been found that the scholars lack the knowledge of Indian languages and scriptures. Rajiv pointed out in his blog several such examples that Harvard professor Witzel found in Wendy's works.

Wendy responded stating that words in Sanskrit can be interpreted in many different ways. In her book, Hindus an alternative History, she describes that in Harvard there was a joke that every word in Sanskrit means itself, its opposite and a sexual position. Probably she took the joke literally and has been using the sexual angle in the translation of Sanskrit works.

This is an abuse towards the mother of all Indian languages. Also one wonders if locker room jokes such as this are a pre-requisite for getting nominated for the book critics award.

I will conclude stating that the current stance taken by the American researchers is biased based upon the earlier experiences with the fake Hindu Gurus who promoted drugs, sex and violence. The research work is specifically aimed at showing Hindus and Hinduism in a bad light.

Just as a person who has never fallen in love cannot effectively write a book on love, in a similar vein a person may obtain a PhD in Hinduism, but will not understand it fully unless he or she personally experiences it. So I personally believe that the American academy needs Hindu scholars who practice Hinduism in their daily lives.