THE HINDU IS NO POLYTHEIST OR HENOTHEIST BUT OMNITHEIST IS THE HINDU

THE HINDU IS NO POLYTHEIST OR HENOTHEIST BUT OMNITHEIST IS THE HINDU

The Hindu is neither a monotheist nor a polytheist nor a henotheist as Max Mueller chooses to describe him. The Hindu is an omnitheist, one who deifies life itself and holds everything phenomenal to be the manifestation of the Divine.

To the Hindu's highest realisation and conception thereof (not the other way, it is noteworthy) God is all that is. The Hindu recognises the relative in the light of the Absolute which transcends numeral count and can neither be described as the One nor the Many but which enfolds within itself the whole range of multiplicity. It is difficult to pinpoint the Hindu as such as this or that and it is best to leave him alone to brood on himself and, if he so chooses, to self-describe himself.

In his highest reflection on this issue the Hindu counts these western philosophers as puerile prattlers who but posit names to classify the Hindu but fail to even touch the hem of his spiritual garment, much less touch the flesh and form of his being which will simply dissolve into nothingness before such profanity be performed.

At his highest spiritual contemplation the Hindu loses himself in the infinitude of his being where Brahman alone is and there is neither God nor his manifold sonic dream spread out in spectral beams dispersing through the refracting medium of the mind till the unit, split and separate, is reached. There in solitary splendour the Hindu no more views himself as Hindu but as the essence of his scriptural formulation as Consciousness Absolute, Absolute Existence and the Self-brooding Self. Atman has recoiled upon itself as the Hindu loses ground to strike root in the ground of it all, the foundation of which no phenomenal projection is possible. This is the summit of the Hindu's realisation, the basis of his spiritual existence where he is existence itself.

Call you the Hindu now, O western pretender to philosophical proclamation, a polytheist or henotheist? 'Shake off this sterile curse' of an ascription and sit at the Hindu sage's feet to learn what the Hindu is and what his cherished dharma is, the Sanatan Dharma which is beyond such puerile pronouncements. Meditate on the Sound and you will see the Light. Om !

Written by Sugata Bose