Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 17:31:12 -0500
From: Unka Bart <mendicant-AT-buddhist.com>
Subject: The wheel and the energy


Ali Kazmi further clarifies the matter

> >Unka Bart wrote:
> >
> >> In the Hindu literature, the many gods exist merely to aid the reader in
> >> focusing on one or more of the many facets of the energy that underlies
> and
> >> motivates the universe.  Educated Hindus understand this, and do not
> >> mistake the mythic "gods" for "real" gods; whereas the uneducated do tend
> >> to make that mistake and similarly, treat the hindu literature as
> >> "religion."
> >>
> >> The same thing happens in Buddhism, for the same reason.
> >
> >Does the Hindu literature say so, or is this a modern interpretation?

I don't believe that you'll ever find an explicit statement like "this is a
Myth, do not confuse it with religion."  That said, it is *not* a new
interpretation.  All of the Eastern Philosophies (the "isms", hindu,
buddhist, Jain, Tao, and some that escape me) share a common world view,
that this world we live, work, love and die in, are the products of
illusion; but the illusion can be pierced.  Those unable to pierce the
illusion are condemned to follow the endless cycles of death and rebirth.
There's more, but this is the essence.

> Well this is taking a "maharishi'ish" look at things. The educated hindus
> that I know do acknowledge that their religion is a mythology, but, they
> still pray to the gods and fulfill the rituals. What Unka Bart is talking
> about is enlightned hindus - which there will be as many of as enlightned
> christians or muslims or buddhists - not many.

More than you might believe.  But thank you for your contribution, I can't
really find a great deal of fault in what you say.  I do stand by the
"educated" bit, it's not just the enlightened, but a small nit, that.

> All gods are personifications of underlying natural phenomena - and people
> usually pray to effect the underlying phenomena, the monotheists are a bit
> confused because they only have one god for all the phenomena - and
> therefore sometimes start believing in a "real" god - one unconnected to the
> universe. but the pantheists have a god for each attribute of the universe,
> so they aren't as confused. Hindus pray to Laxmi - not becuase she is a god,
> but because she is Luck. Or to Lingam because it represents fertility. I
> don't think any hindu, educated or uneducated, believes in god as a thing in
> it's self.

Pretty well said, Meph, ol' spirit.  But the bit about "praying" is more in
the order of focusing one's attention upon that particular aspect of the
energy.

But my experience with very poor and illiterate buddhists is that they very
definitely *do* make the diefication error, and I can't imagine that poor,
illiterate Hindu folkx are any more immune to that error than the buddhists.

But what do I know...?