Maya and the evolution of the conception of God

[Guest guest]

The idea of the cruel and ruthless Jehovah in the Old Testament has

frightened many--but why? What right have they to assume that the

Jehovah of the ancient Jews must represent the conventional idea of

the God of the present day? At the same time, we must not forget that

there will come men after us who will laugh at our ideas of religion

and God in the same way that we laugh at those of the ancients. Yet,

through all these various conceptions runs the golden thread of

unity, and it is the purpose of the Vedanta to discover this

thread. " I am the thread that runs through all these various ideas,

each one of which is like a pearl, " says the Lord Krishna; and it is

the duty of Vedanta to establish this connecting thread, however

incongruous or disgusting may seem these ideas which judged according

to the conceptions of today. These ideas, in the setting of past

times, were harmonious and not more hideous than our present ideas.

It is only when we try to take them out of their settings and apply

to our present circumstances that the hideousness becomes obvious.

For the old surroundings are dead and gone. Just as the ancient Jew

has developed into the keen, modern, sharp Jew, and the ancient Aryan

into the intellectual Hindu, similarly Jehovah has grown, and Devas

have grown.

 

The great mistake is in recognising the evolution of the worshippers,

while we do not acknowledge the evolution of the Worshipped. He is

not credited with the advance that his devotees have made. That is to

say, you and I, as representing ideas, have grown; these gods also,

as representing ideas, have grown. This may seem somewhat curious to

you--that God can grow. He cannot. He is unchangeable. In the same

sense the real man never grows. But the man's ideas of God are

constantly changing and expanding. We shall see later on how the real

man behind each one of these human manifestations is immovable,

unchangeable, pure, and always perfect; and in the same way the idea

that we form of God is a mere manifestation, our own creation. Behind

that is the real God who never changes, the ever pure, the immutable.

But the manifestation is always changing, revealing the reality

behind more and more. When it reveals more of the fact behind, it is

called progression, when it hides more of the fact behind, it is

called retrogression. Thus, as we grow, so the gods grow. From the

ordinary point of view, just as we reveal ourselves as we evolve, so

the gods reveal themselves.

 

We shall now be in a position to understand the theory of Maya. In

all the regions of the world the one question they propose to discuss

is this: Why is there disharmony in the universe? Why is there this

evil in the universe? We do not find this question in the very

inception of primitive religious ideas, because the world did not

appear incongruous to the primitive man. Circumstances were not

inharmonious for him; there was no clash of opinions; to him there

was no antagonism of good and evil. There was merely a feeling in his

own heart of something which said yea, and something which said nay.

The primitive man was a man of impulse. He did what occurred to him,

and tried to bring out through his muscles whatever thought came into

his mind, and he never stopped to judge, and seldom tried to check

his impulses. Indra comes and shatters the forces of the demons.

Jehovah is pleased with one person and displeased with another, for

what reason no one knows or asks. The habit of inquiry had not then

arisen, and whatever he did was regarded as right. There was no idea

of good or evil. The Devas did many wicked things in our sense of the

word; again and again Indra and other gods committed very wicked

deeds, but to the worshippers of Indra the ideas of wickedness and

evil did not occur, so they did not question them.

 

- Swami Vivekananda

 

.... to be continued