Theism today is wishful thinking without the symbiotic reinforcement from
nature and the Biosphere. YMji
KR Belief in the existence of a divine reality; usually referring to
monotheism (one God), as opposed to pantheism (all is God), polytheism
(many gods), and atheism (without God). Theists also believe that god (or
the gods) interacts with humans and the known universe via methods of
divine intervention. Deism is similar in that deists believe that a creator
god exists, but deists do not believe that such an entity interacts with
the universe, humans, or other life forms.
All Christians hold that God is external to human beings and it
is God or, YHWH (Yahweh) who has created humanity from nothing. So all
humanity is created and sustained by a merciful, all-loving God who is
entirely different from all of us. Even after death, Christians hold, there
remains a distinction between the individual soul and God. Further, the
Christian God is triune in nature --- the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. The Son, that is, Jesus the Christ is co-eternal with the Father
and in no way inferior to the Father. Jesus is both God and human at the
same time. Had Jesus not been crucified, there would be no atonement for
the sins of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve are considered to symbolically
represent the first humans that God created ex-nihilo --- from nothing. The
sins of the first humans include pride and disobedience against God. God
according to Christianity is self-originated. There was nothing other than
God ever. Time has been created by God. God is partly knowable (passible)
and partly unknowable (impassible). God knows everything (omniscient) and
is everywhere (omnipresent). So those who believe that there is no God are
atheists. A point to note is that the Christian understanding of God cannot
explain why evil exists. The justification of the presence of sorrow and
pain including natural disasters is known as theodicy. Christianity fails
to offer a logical theodicy. The Christian concept of God gives rise to the
Problem of Evil.
Our Shastras do not admit of an exterior God. Our Faith is not
monotheistic but in all its various branches, our Dharma is monistic
(Advaita). So, the category of being atheistic does not even arise in our
Dharma.
The Bhagavad Gita which is the touchstone of all Hindu Shastras will be
quoted to show how our Dharma is monistic. The importance of the Bhagavad
Gita is acknowledged within all branches of our Dharma so much so that
seers as different as Adi Shankaracharya and Sri Abhinavaguptacommented on
the Gita. Adi Shankaracharya was an Advaita Vedantin, admitting of no
duality in his arguments against Buddhism. Buddhists subscribe to the
theory of dependent origination (प्रतीत्यसमुत्पाद) and as is well known;
Gautama Buddha was silent about the existence of God.
Notwithstanding the objections of Western polemicists of Buddhism, like
Johannes Bronkhorst (b.1946), Buddhism too derives from our Dharma, and we
consider the Sakya Muni as an Incarnation (Avatara) of Lord Vishnu.Sri
Abhinavagupta was an ardent practitioner and commentator of Tantra in its
forms as Kashmiri Shaivism. Acharya Avinavagupta’s voluminous Tantraloka
and separately, the Vijñāna Bhairava Tantra clearly state that all the
Tantric Deities and the Mahavidyas are within us. They are not exterior to
us.
Our Dharma is therefore, essentially a non-solipsistic (non-selfish)
turning inward where we aim to realize that the world outside is only a
hat-trick played conjured by our own minds.Now we turn to the Bhagavad Gita
to illustrate the point that our Dharma does not agree with any
subject/object distinction. In other words, we hold that we are the One
already and due to perceptual errors cannot cognize or understand that we
are One (शिवोऽहम्/Shivoham). There is no second. This one who types and the
one who reads this are One already. There is nothing to attain, nothing to
lose, nothing to find. Everything is Brahman. Here are two passages from
the Bhagavad Gita to prove that our Dharma is non-dual and does not admit
of an external God. We hold that it is important to divinise ourselves for
the Rig Veda commands us to be a god to worship God who is within us. Not
outside of us. The textual register God is used since English, being
essentially a dualist language, has no better word for Brahman.
After the relevant quotes from the Bhagavad Gita, we will briefly quote
other canonical scriptures to show how we do not admit of an external God
who created us from nothing.
ब्रह्मार्पणंब्रह्महविर्ब्रह्माग्नौब्रह्मणाहुतम् |
ब्रह्मैवतेनगन्तव्यंब्रह्मकर्मसमाधिना || 24|| (Chapter4)
brahmārpaṇaṁ brahma havirbrahmāgnaubrahmaṇāhutam
brahmaiva tenagantavyaṁ brahma-karma-samādhinā
Brahman is the oblation; Brahman is the clarified butter, etc.,
constituting the offerings; by Brahman is the oblation poured into the fire
of Brahman; Brahman verily shall be reached by him who always sees Brahman
in all actions. (Translated by Swami Chinmayananda)
There is none other than Brahman. This is the message of the Bhagavad Gita
and of all our Scriptures. There is but the One who manifests as the many.
Our Agamas and Tantras too reiterate this Truth. Monism is the telos or
goal of all our worship or dulia. The aim is to obliterate the difference
between the worshipper and the worshipped.
In Chapter 6, Verse 5, the Bhagavad Gita declares:
उद्धरेदात्मनात्मानंनात्मानमवसादयेत्।
आत्मैवह्यात्मनोबन्धुरात्मैवरिपुरात्मनः॥६-५॥
uddharedātmanātmānaṃnātmānamavasādayet
ātmaivahyātmanobandhurātmaivaripurātmanaḥ
Let a man lift himself by his own Self alone, and let him not lower
himself; for, this Self alone is the friend of oneself, and this Self is
the enemy of oneself. (Translated by Swami Chinmayananda)
So, what or who is this Self which alone exists in the Gita and elsewhere?
To understand this Self, we use cognate terms like Paramatman (परमात्मन्) and
antaryāmin to speak of God. The word Paramatman can be parsed as parama +
atman. While parama can be roughly translated to ‘supreme’ or, beyond; it
is very difficult to translate the word ‘atman’; which does not mean either
soul or only being.
‘Atman’ can only be understood if we study it alongside the word,
antaryāmin (अन्तर्यामिन्) --- That which regulates from within. Thus, we
discard the notion of the Heideggerian Dasein or, the being in the world in
the here and now separated from God. We hold that we are not 'star dust'
but so to speak, God dust ourselves:
शृण्वन्तुबिश्वेअमृतस्यपुत्राआयेधामानिदिब्यानितस्थुः … (Shvetashvatara
Upanishad , 2:5)
Swami Vivekananda translated this line as being a call to humanity to
realise that we are“Children of immortal bliss”. We are not fallen beings,
neither are we different from Brahman. Due to cognitive errors we cannot
realise that we are ourselves divine.
That is why we do not call deep thinking about the hard questions of life,
philosophy (love for wisdom) but we call our experiential gradual
realisation about our oneness with Brahman, Darshana. We slowly see the
Truth and realise that It is One, though sages call it by many names,
एकंसद्विप्राबहुधावदन्ति
(Rig Veda).
Within the Indic faiths there does not exist the categorical imperatives of
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). This does not automatically mean that absolute
good and absolute evil also does not exist. To understand this, we need to
be aware of a cornerstone of Indic philosophy --- the concept of
anekāntavāda.
Anekāntavādaderives from the Vedic injunction that the Truth is perceived
differently by different people, as quoted above. This is to say, that
unlike Western philosophy our Darshana, accepts the existence of the
excluded middle.
Western philosophy does not accept the excluded middle which
therefore gives rise to various theistic and dualist ideas. Within our
Dharma such duality is not admitted, neither do we have the concept of
monotheism or even polytheism. The discussion on the excluded middle is for
another essay. It suffices to end this essay by pointing out that when
someone talks of materialism, there is a presupposition of another entity
(the Logos which is corporeal). Such a theistic position has been discarded
by our seers because theism in all its forms cannot solve the Problem of
Evil as the Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev (1874-1948) rightly
remarked that the Problem of Evil is the only worthwhile
philosophical/theological Problem that needs solving in Western theistic
and therefore, dualist philosophy/theology.
Atheism is the opposite of theism. Opposite is used here in
the sense that Aristotle used the term in his Physics --- the opposite of
something, for example, is nothing. The opposite of one, according to
Aristotelian logic, is zero or null. Putting it differently, something is
there or not there. According to Aristotelian logic, something cannot both
be there and not be there at the same time. There can be no two
simultaneous outcomes of a single proposition. This is known as the
principle of the excluded middle. What we call Western & Islamic philosophy
is based on the principle of the ‘excluded middle’. According to this
principle, either there is God or there is nothing. In short, Western &
Islamic all religions except so named Hinduism, philosophy is grounded on
dualities. This is not the case with Dharmic philosophies, it is not a case
of either/or as is found in Aristotelian and subsequent Western logic.
We, unlike Aristotle, accept the so-called ‘excluded middle’. *That is,
the opposite of something is not nothing, but maybe some other thing.* This
insight of not excluding the middle is a direct result of how we see, or
not see, God. The existence of God poses insurmountable problems from a
philosophical standpoint. This problem was acknowledged by Acharyas
Gaudapada and later by Adi Shankaracharya. They reasoned thus: if God
exists how is it that evil, primarily natural evil, exists? Their readings
of the Upanishads revealed that such a category called ‘God’ is
inapplicable to our Dharma and irrelevant. The Problem of Evil negates the
existence of God in the sense that the Abrahamic religions posit the
existence of both God and Satan/Shaitan. William Rowe's (1931-2015) fawn
(The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism 1979) is a well-known
example of the Problem of Evil. Rowe argues that the suffering of a baby
deer in a forest fire in no way serves any purpose for an omnipotent and
omniscient God. It is impossible that God can derive any comfort from a
baby deer suffering so horribly to pay for its non-existent sins. Taking the
hint from Rowe, someone can argue, oh, the fawn is paying for its past karma.
But then, the problem arises that if there is a God in the Abrahamic sense
of an all-knowing and all-powerful entity/monad who creates beings ex
nihilo, or, from nothing, then how and why did this God allow the first
form of the fawn to do wrong in the ontic/original state? The theory of
infinite regression (regressus ad infinitum) too forbids the presence of
ontic or original sin since a benevolent Creator God cannot allow any first
being to do any wrong. Thus, the idea of a watchmaker God, an immovable
mover is unacceptable to us.
*The watchmaker God of William Paley or the immoveable mover God of
Aristotle both cannot explain the reason for God’s existence through
regressus ad infinitum*; since not being able to see beyond a point does
not mean that there is nothing beyond that point. If anything, it goes
against the principle of the impassibility of God. That is, God is
impassible or not entirely knowable. This leaves room for regressus ad
infinitum. *This renders the possibility of theism void*. Yet in no way do
we call ourselves atheists. Conversely, that does not automatically mean we
are theists. As had been emphasized earlier, we do not agree with the
Aristotelian notion of opposites. We find the term atheist problematic
since it does not do justice to a more nuanced middle position. Also, what
Western thinkers have called the excluded middle presupposes a middle in
relation to two antipodes: or two opposite extremes. We do not accept such
extremes.
Returning to God and suffering; if God permits suffering or needs
suffering to help a created being, then God is not God according to Western
definitions of God. The opposite of God is not, no-God. It is the Self
illumined. We can further approach this problem of God through the
Madhyamika philosophy of Bhagvan Buddha. There is no ‘nothing’. (sunya)
There exists a Middle path between philosophical idealism and (Jain)
pragmatism. This is the Middle Path. Jains approach this problem through
their theory of ‘anekāntavāda’. *Since Indic thought systems are non-dual
and do not admit of pure theism; atheism as a category is irrelevant for
us. Carvaka’s philosophy is not atheism; it is at the same time pure
hedonism and pure materialism.* Indian Marxist thinkers have imputed to
Carvaka their European ontologies and thus keep returning to the existence
of God as the objection to the foundation of religious discourses. God is
indeed essential for religious discourses, but unnecessary within the
economy of the evolutionary nature of our Dharma. *We are monists and not
monotheists or polytheists.* Even Acharya Ramanuja does not agree with Lord
Krishna being akin to God--- Sri Ramanujacharya’s philosophy is
vishishtadvaita or, qualified non-dualism. *Atheism within our Dharma means
a belief in the Vedas or lack thereof.* This, with the caveat: by the Vedas
we do not mean every word of the Vedas are to be taken literally since like
all texts, the Vedas too are fluid and ruptured with extrapolations.
Robin Le Poidevin writes in Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction to
the Philosophy of Religion (1996): “A religion, then, on this account, is a
way of life based on a metaphysical conception of the world. Religious
doctrine contains, therefore, what are essentially explanatory
hypotheses…In contrast to this view is the non-metaphysical conception of
religion” (Introduction to Le Poidevin’s book, xx, italics is Le
Poidevin’s).
Herein lies the fundamental difference between our Dharma and other
ways of extant religious practices. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was
unfortunately swayed by this ‘way of life’ theory of religion which derives
from the anthropology of religions in the West. Further, our Dharma does
not consist of ‘explanatory hypotheses’. Our Dharma is based on
experiential ratiocination, or reasoning which leads to certain conclusions
which are not hypothetical but found to be true irrespective of time,
place, and practitioner. This absolute nature of certain truths and not,
truth-claims, have been definitively pointed out in the Yoga Sutras. Our
seers have over eons and millennia discovered the archeology of this and
other universes. Thus, we do not hold hypotheses, neither with pure
idealism or a purely phenomenological understanding of the world.
Thus, we hold untrue some of the contentions of the German Idealists
and many postulates of both Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. For
instance, we do not subscribe to the construction of the ‘dasein’ as found
in Heidegger’s Being and Time. Dasein indicates the human person in all its
limitations in the here and the now --- the dasein is imagined by Heidegger
to be death-oriented and marked by its total helplessness or abjection. The
Heideggerian dasein is reoriented to life by the Jesuit theologian Karl
Rahner through its belief in the risen Christ. We reject both the
Heideggerian death-oriented ‘dasein’ and of course, Karl Rahner’s
life-oriented dasein since these ‘dasein’ or the persons/beings in the here
and the now are existentially authentic or factive, that is, the ‘dasein’
finds its facticity, or reality, in a Christian understanding of God who is
the essence, or ontological and archetypal esse of the existentialists like
Jean Paul Sartre who rejects this arch-dasein in his Being and Nothingness.
We end this brief critique of the category of ‘atheism’ by referring to
this well-known and popular work by Sartre.
* We return to our contention that we do not agree with the opposite of
Being as Nothing*. Such an Aristotelian proposition is meaningless within
our discourse. Just since we do not hold true the explanatory hypotheses of
either Heidegger or Jean Paul Sartre on the one hand and, Rahner’s
misplaced theological optimism on the other hand, we do not become
atheists. To reiterate at the cost of being cliched, we are Vedantins and
followers of Samkhya and Yoga and Tantra and thus we are all monists of one
sort or another. The various manifestations of the Holy Mother as found in
Kashmiri Shaivism and in the Anuttara Trika are not outside deities ---
they are within us. In Chan Buddhism, to give another example, it is deity
visualization akin to Hindu Tantra and Vajrayana which leads to Nirvana.
These deities are not external deities in the Abrahamic sense where angels
exist eternally outside space and time.
Within the Hindu understanding of time, time is not a function of God.
Time and everything that is corporeal is Brahman as the Upanishadic
Mahavakyas declare. And yet, following our tradition we do not hold that
there is an external God for such a God gives rise to the problem of evil.
That does not make us atheists since we hold that Brahman is the foundation
of everything, nay, Brahman is all that is. Sanskrit scholars testify that
there is no word which is cognate to God in that language.
Hence THEISM IS NOT A WISHFUL THINKING. Maybe it is applied in
duality culture or adopting a middle groove. But the only way of life,
sanatana dharma, has broad freedom to practice on your own thoughts through
the mind and raise the level. It is not a free will absolutely but not a
chained relationship too, like all religions of the world.
K Rajaram IRS 31824 1924
On Fri, 30 Aug 2024 at 20:07, Markendeya Yeddanapudi <
[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> --
> *Mar*The Death of the God Paradigm
>
>
>
>
>
> When nature was totally free and healthy, perception was symbiotic along
> with every organism of the Biosphere. God was felt in smells and the sounds
> of music from the air.There were a continuous symphony, the ultimate
> Philharmonics from nature. God was nature and perception and understanding
> was possible only with God as the paradigmatic base of perception and
> understanding of every organism. God manifested as the language of smells
> and sounds from the troposphere and as cosmic entanglement via quantum
> entanglement in the cosmos. Perception and understanding was Nature-centric
> and not anthropocentric. Every organism could converse with every other
> organism with nature or God as the medium. Theism flowed in the air. Every
> organism was a Theist with nature as its macro body. Atheism could not be
> even conceptualized.
>
> When one was thus a macro body, one could sense whatever was happening
> anywhere in nature, just like our sensing today an ant crawling on our
> skin. That very basic feature of sensing, knowing and acting is lost today,
> thanks to the poisoning of the land, water and air as economic activity,
> the depredations of the economic man, the phantom, the Newtonian machine
> without feelings and emotions, the disease of nature.
>
> And from the atmospheric and environmental symbiosis and also cosmic
> symbiosis, governing Theism, we drifted gradually first to industrialized
> and mechanized commercialism, day today atheism, and destructive
> commercialism and now to economic life which means the destruction of
> nature as day today activity. God no longer is felt but only discussed and
> debated as someone or something unrelated and non-emotional, and not as
> part of one’s basic being. With nature’s living and functioning symbiosis
> killed, God has become a subject of Cartesian gymnastics about a mechanical
> and indifferent phantom to whom the designation of God is given wishfully.
>
> Theism,today is wishful thinking without the symbiotic reinforcement from
> nature and the Biosphere. The mechanized God of indifference, a science
> construct as is natural has created the Darwinist approach according to
> which, the Biosphere consists of organisms which are in the deadly fights
> with each other, to achieve the ultimate medal in the war and game of the
> survival of the fittest. The basic link of ecology among the organisms is
> jettisoned. We killed nature’s symbiosis and GOD.
>
> Theism instead of being the basic component of the air has become simply
> the assertion without reality as the fact. God no longer can be the
> paradigm.
>
> We are enslaving every organism of the Biosphere including the human. In
> the case of the human, a lot of glib academic bluff is bludgeoned as great
> learning. But every organism is made into livestock. You no longer see an
> emotional life form when you look at a cat or dog, but only a machine. We
> are indifferent to the fact that it is a life form.
>
> The Ecology of Life Forms has become extinct with the human fool imaging
> that he is the gold medalist in the Darwinist war of killing every other
> organism spiritually immediately and physically as per the needs of human
> economies.
>
> We have today the Cartesian or mechanical ecology, with Robots at the peak
> of mechanical ladder. Every life form is on its way into extinction. Theism
> has become extinct.
>
> We have the proud and assertive atheist fools who champion Darwinism, and
> to whom the extinction of life forms is great economic and scientific
> progress. The Idiots live in Mansions moving in costly cars, not even
> knowing what real happiness is. Most go to the Temple Cities where God has
> been made extinct. They are just Holiday Resorts.
>
> Theism needs free, lush, thick and healthy nature with the air as the
> language of all organisms of the Biosphere. Prayer today is wailing, not
> singing in rapture. Darsan in the Big Temples is a matter of bribing the
> officials to jump the queue or skip the queue altogether by flashing the
> official status or economic might. The neutralized God or the God that
> vanished cannot do anything. All Gods are killed.
>
> YM
>
> Chat GPT
>
>
>
> YM Sarma's "The Death of the God Paradigm" presents a deep critique of the
> transition from a nature-centric, symbiotic perception of God to the modern
> mechanical and economic worldview that has effectively "killed" God as an
> intrinsic part of the human experience. The text reflects on how the
> natural, emotional, and interconnected understanding of the divine has been
> replaced by a cold, detached, and ultimately destructive perspective that
> aligns with modern industrial and economic systems.
>
>
>
> ### Key Themes and Reflections:
>
>
>
> 1. **Symbiosis with Nature and Theism**:
>
> - Sarma begins by describing a time when nature was seen as free,
> healthy, and intrinsically connected to the divine. In this worldview, God
> was experienced through the natural world—its smells, sounds, and the
> symphony of life. Every organism was part of a larger, living system where
> perception and understanding were not anthropocentric but nature-centric.
> Theism was not a belief system but a lived reality, with God present in
> every aspect of the biosphere.
>
>
>
> 2. **The Shift to Mechanized and Economic Worldviews**:
>
> - The text traces the gradual shift from this symbiotic relationship
> with nature to a mechanized and industrialized approach, where God is no
> longer felt or experienced directly. The rise of commercialism and the
> dominance of economic activity have led to the destruction of nature's
> symbiosis, replacing the natural, living God with a mechanical and
> indifferent construct. Theism, once the very air that organisms breathed,
> has become a hollow concept, disconnected from the lived experience.
>
>
>
> 3. **The Role of Cartesian Philosophy**:
>
> - Sarma critiques Cartesian philosophy, which laid the groundwork for
> viewing the world and its organisms as mere machines. This perspective has
> not only led to the exploitation of nature but also to a fundamental
> disconnect from the emotional and spiritual dimensions of life. The result
> is a world where Darwinism is interpreted as a ruthless competition for
> survival, devoid of the ecological and emotional bonds that once defined
> the biosphere.
>
>
>
> 4. **The Extinction of Theism and Ecology**:
>
> - According to Sarma, the death of the God paradigm has led to the
> extinction of theism as a living reality. The destruction of nature's
> symbiosis has turned Theism into a mere assertion without any real
> foundation in experience. The human, now isolated and disconnected, views
> other life forms as mere machines, contributing to the extinction of
> emotional and ecological life.
>
>
>
> 5. **Modern Atheism and the Emptiness of Progress**:
>
> - The text also critiques modern atheism and the pursuit of economic
> and scientific progress, which often celebrate the extinction of life forms
> as a sign of advancement. Sarma argues that this mindset leads to a hollow
> existence, where true happiness and emotional connection are lost, replaced
> by material wealth and technological prowess.
>
>
>
> ### Broader Implications:
>
>
>
> - **The Human Disconnection from Nature**:
>
> - Sarma's work highlights the dangers of disconnecting from the natural
> world and its intrinsic value. The shift from a symbiotic relationship with
> nature to a mechanical, industrialized perspective has led to ecological
> degradation and spiritual impoverishment.
>
>
>
> - **The Role of Spirituality in Modern Life**:
>
> - The text raises important questions about the role of spirituality
> and theism in modern life. Can a mechanical and economically driven
> worldview sustain the emotional and spiritual needs of humanity? Sarma
> suggests that without a return to a more nature-centric and emotionally
> connected understanding of the divine, true fulfillment may be unattainable.
>
>
>
> ### Final Thought:
>
> YM Sarma's "The Death of the God Paradigm" offers a profound critique of
> the modern world, urging a return to a more symbiotic and emotionally
> connected relationship with nature and the divine. It challenges readers to
> reconsider the impact of industrialization, economic activity, and
> scientific rationalism on their spiritual and emotional well-being,
> advocating for a revival of theism grounded in the living reality of nature.
>
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