Understanding the nature of god based on teachings from Hindu religion.
Our understanding of God begins by thinking of him as a person or as multiple life forms or as a living organism capable of anything. He sits somewhere doing his job without a break. Many get to learn about this nature of God from parents, relatives, and teachers or through religion. This understanding of God remains with majority of people until they depart from the world. Some questions this form of God and turn atheist. Lucky few go deeper into the world of Vedanta and realize that this understanding of God is limited.
The God that sits somewhere and fulfills our desires is the creation of our imagination. In this thought, God is male or female. God is like us humans. So as a philosopher once said, if horses were to create God then God would be like a horse.
So how do you describe this God? Silence.
It cannot be described. Some say it has the luster of 1000 suns. Some say it is smaller than the smallest and bigger than the biggest. All these are limiting our thoughts. Supreme Truth cannot be limited by words and thoughts.
There is a supreme intelligence or supreme truth. It is beyond imagination. It beyond words and thoughts.
That Supreme Truth can only be known or realized.
When we are able to see God in all animate and inanimate, we are realizing the Truth. This is the aim of Vedanta – to see the creator in all forms.
Gods and Goddesses in Hindu religion are a symbolic representation of the Supreme Truth. They are the bridge from ignorance to self-realization. But sadly many of us think the bridge to be supreme truth and settle with it.
The majority of the stories of Hindu Gods and Goddesses are symbolic in nature. But we take the literal meaning of it and settle with it. We need to look beyond.
For example, Sesha – Vishnu sleeping on Sesha is a common image in Hinduism. But what is Sesha, that which remains when all else is lost; the infinite and eternal.
The aim of all Hindu scriptures and symbols is to take human
mind beyond the knowledge of a God sitting somewhere in the heaven with a
remote control
Realize That Supreme Truth through correct understanding. We need not go far to get this knowledge. It is all around us. Search within. Search for the source and you will see the light that is present in all forms in the universe.
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Abhilash