Celebrating Shravan with Shiva -25

 

Shiva Day Twenty-five

The Concept of God in Hinduism by Swami Krishnanada

1.  The Virat-Saivas worship God as Siva, especially manifest as the Linga(symbolized in the rounded sacred stone which they wear round their necks).

The symbol of Vishnu is the Saligrama, the symbol of Siva is the Linga, and the symbol of Devi is the Yantra(sometimes, a Mantra).

2.  According to the Nyaya and Vaiseshika schools, God is the instrumental cause of creation, like a potter fashioning a pot of clay, but not the material cause of creation.

3.  The Samkhya school holds that there are only two Primary Principles, Purusha and Prakriti, and creation is only a manifestation or evolution of the constituents of Prakriti due to the action of Purusha's consciousness. There is no other God than these two Principles.

4.  The Yoga school of Patanjali accepts God's existence as a Special Purusha free from all afflictions, Karma the effects of Karmas and impressions or potencies of a binding nature. But this Purusha, known as Isvara, according to Patanjali's Yoga System, is not the creator of the world, but a Witness thereof. Nor is He the goal of the aspirations of the Jivas or individuals.

5.  The Yogavasishtha defines Reality as the Consciousness which is between and transcends the subjective and objective aspects in perception and cognition, etc. Consciousness is the Absolute, Brahman, the only existence, of which the world is only an appearance.

6.  The Brahmasutra states that God is That from Whom this Universe proceeds, in Whom it subsists, and to Whom, in the end, it returns.

These are some of the researched thesis of great thinkers that host Vedic, pre-Vedic, and Upanishad teachings. Many are still remembered by the followers as institutions of Vedic knowledge.

Virat-Saivas worship God as Siva

The evolution of belief in god was initiated with Shiva which originated 15 000 thousand years ago with the concept of creation as its foundation.

Nyaya and Vaiseshika schools, God is the instrumental cause of creation

Vaisheshika or Vaiśeṣika (Sanskrit: वैशेषिक) is one of the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy (Vedic systems) from ancient India. In its early stages, the Vaiśeṣika was an independent philosophy with its own metaphysics, epistemology, logic, ethics, and soteriology. It is a form of atomism in natural philosophy.

Samkhya school holds that there are only two Primary Principles, Purusha and Prakriti

Sage Kapila is traditionally credited as a founder of the Samkhya school. However, it is unclear in which century of 1st millennium BCE Kapila lived. Kapila appears in Rigveda, but the context suggests that the word means "reddish-brown color".

The yoga school of Patanjali accepts God's existence as a Special Purusha

The truth is that nobody really knows much about Patanjali. We don't even know exactly when the sage lived. Some practitioners believe he lived around the second century BCE and also wrote significant works on Ayurveda(the ancient Indian system of medicine) and Sanskrit grammar, making him something of a Renaissance man.

Yogavasishtha defines Reality as the Consciousness

Yoga Vasistha originally is an intensely fascinating dialogue between Lord Rama and his spiritual guru Vasistha Muni, written by Valmiki as a part of the Ramayana.

 

The Brahmasutra states that God is that from whom this Universe precedes, in whom it subsists

Vedic scriptures and Brahma sutras are as old as the universe. Whatever left-out scriptures available that we have today is due to efforts made by our ancestors to propagate the knowledge to their future generations? The oldest written record found belongs to the second century BC according to Dr.Radhakrishnan. There are no authors for Vedic scriptures. They are the rules of the Universe.