Brahman overcomes all Muslim/Christian objections about Hindu believe in One God

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Hinduism by Dr. Zakir Naik

 

 

I INTRODUCTION TO HINDUISM:

 

The most popular among the Aryan religions is Hinduism.

`Hindu' is actually a Persian word that stands for the

inhabitants of the region beyond the Indus Valley. However, in

common parlance, Hinduism is a blanket term for an assortment of

religious beliefs, most of which are based on the Vedas, the

Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita.

 

II INTRODUCTION TO HINDU SCRIPTURES.

 

There are several sacred scriptures of the Hindus. Among these are

the Vedas, Upanishads and the Puranas.

 

1.VEDAS:

 

The word Veda is derived from vid which means to know, knowledge par

excellence or sacred wisdom. There are four principal divisions of

the Vedas (although according to their number, they amount to 1131

out of which about a dozen are available). According to Maha Bhashya

of Patanjali, there are 21 branches of Rigveda, 9 types of

Atharvaveda, 101 branches of Yajurveda and 1000 of Samveda).

 

The Rigveda, the Yajurveda and the Samveda are considered to be more

ancient books and are known as Trai Viddya or the `Triple

Sciences'. The Rigveda is the oldest and has been compiled in

three long and different periods of time. The 4th Veda is the

Atharvaveda, which is of a later date.

 

There is no unanimous opinion regarding the date of compilation or

revelation of the four Vedas. According to Swami Dayanand, founder

of the Arya Samaj, the Vedas were revealed 1310 million years ago.

According to other scholars, they are not more than 4000 years old.

 

Similarly, there are differing opinions regarding the places where

these books were compiled and the Rishis to whom these Scriptures

were given. Inspite of these differences, the Vedas are considered

to be the most authentic of the Hindu Scriptures and the real

foundations of the Hindu Dharma.

 

2. UPANISHADS:

 

The word 'Upanishad' is derived from Upa meaning near, Ni which

means down and Shad means to sit. Therefore `Upanishad' means

sitting down near. Groups of pupils sit near the teacher to learn

from him the secret doctrines.

 

According to Samkara, `Upanishad' is derived from the root

word Sad which means `to loosen', `to reach' or

`to destroy', with Upa and ni as prefix; therefore

`Upanishad' means Brahma-Knowledge by which ignorance is

loosened or destroyed.

 

The number of Upanishads exceeds 200 though the Indian tradition

puts it at 108. There are 10 principal Upanishads. However, some

consider them to be more than 10, while others 18.

 

The Vedanta meant originally the Upanishads, though the word is now

used for the system of philosophy based on the Upanishad. Literally,

Vedanta means the end of the Veda, Vedasua-antah, and the conclusion

as well as the goal of Vedas. The Upanishads are the concluding

portion of the Vedas and chronologically they come at the end of the

Vedic period.

 

Some Pundits consider the Upanishads to be more superior to the

Vedas.

 

3. PURANAS:

 

Next in order of authenticity are the Puranas which are the most

widely read scriptures. It is believed that the Puranas contain the

history of the creation of the universe, history of the early Aryan

tribes, life stories of the divines and deities of the Hindus. It is

also believed that the Puranas are revealed books like the Vedas,

which were revealed simultaneously with the Vedas or sometime close

to it.

 

Maharishi Vyasa has divided the Puranas into 18 voluminous parts. He

also arranged the Vedas under various heads.

 

Chief among the Puranas is a book known as Bhavishya Purana. It is

called so because it is believed to give an account of future

events. The Hindus consider it to be the word of God. Maharishi yasa

is considered to be just the compiler of the book.

 

4. ITIHAAS:

 

The two epics of Hinduism are the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

 

A. Ramayana:

 

According to Ramanuja, the great scholar of Ramayana, there are more

than 300 different types of Ramayana: Tulsidas Ramayana, Kumbha

Ramayana. Though the outline of Ramayana is same, the details and

contents differ.

 

Valmiki's Ramayana:

 

Unlike the Mahabharata, the Ramayana appears to be the work of one

person – the sage Valmiki, who probably composed it in the 3rd

century BC. Its best-known recension (by Tulsi Das, 1532-1623)

consists of 24,000 rhymed couplets of 16-syllable lines organised

into 7 books. The poem incorporates many ancient legends and draws

on the sacred books of the Vedas. It describes the efforts of

Kosala's heir, Rama, to regain his throne and rescue his wife,

Sita, from the demon King of Lanka.

 

Valmiki's Ramayana is a Hindu epic tradition whose earliest literary

version is a Sanskrit poem attributed to the sage Valmiki. Its

principal characters are said to present ideal models of personal,

familial, and social behavior and hence are considered to exemplify

Dharma, the principle of moral order.

 

B. Mahabharata:

 

The nucleus of the Mahabharata is the war of eighteen days fought

between the Kauravas, the hundred sons of Dhritarashtra and

Pandavas, the five sons of Pandu. The epic entails all the

circumstances leading upto the war. Involved in this Kurukshetra

battle were almost all the kings of India joining either of the two

parties. The result of this war was the total annihilation of

Kauravas and their party. Yudhishthira, the head of the Pandavas,

became the sovereign monarch of Hastinapura. His victory is supposed

to symbolise the victory of good over evil. But with the progress of

years, new matters and episodes relating to the various aspects of

human life, social, economic, political, moral and religious as also

fragments of other heroic legends came to be added to the aforesaid

nucleus and this phenomenon continued for centuries until it

acquired the present shape. The Mahabharata represents a whole

literature rather than one single and unified work, and contains

many multifarious things.

 

C. Bhagavad Gita:

 

Bhagavad Gita is a part of Mahabharata. It is the advice given by

Krishna to Arjun on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. It contains the

essence of the Vedas and is the most popular of all the Hindu

Scriptures. It contains 18 chapters.

 

The Bhagavad Gita is one of the most widely read and revered of the

works sacred to the Hindus. It is their chief devotional book, and

has been for centuries the principal source of religious inspiration

for many thousands of Hindus.

 

The Gita is a dramatic poem, which forms a small part of the larger

epic, the Mahabharata. It is included in the sixth book

(Bhismaparvan) of the Mahabaharata and documents one tiny event in a

huge epic tale.

 

The Bhagavad Gita tells a story of a moral crisis faced by Arjuna,

which is solved through the interaction between Arjuna, a Pandava

warrior hesitating before battle, and Krishna, his charioteer and

teacher. The Bhagavad Gita relates a brief incident in the main

story of a rivalry and eventually a war between two branches of a

royal family. In that brief incident - a pause on the battlefield

just as the battle is about to begin - Krishna, one chief on one

side (also believed to be the Lord incarnate), is presented as

responding to the doubts of Arjuna. The poem is the dialogue through

which Arjuna's doubts were resolved by Krishna's teachings.

 

CONCEPT OF GOD IN HINDUISM

 

1. Common Concept of God in Hinduism:

 

Hinduism is commonly perceived as a polytheistic religion. Indeed,

most Hindus would attest to this, by professing belief in multiple

Gods. While some Hindus believe in the existence of three gods, some

believe in thousands of gods, and some others in thirty three crore

i.e. 330 million Gods. However, learned Hindus, who are well versed

in their scriptures, insist that a Hindu should believe in and

worship only one God.

 

The major difference between the Hindu and the Muslim perception of

God is the common Hindus' belief in the philosophy of Pantheism.

Pantheism considers everything, living and non-living, to be Divine

and Sacred. The common Hindu, therefore, considers everything as

God. He considers the trees as God, the sun as God, the moon as God,

the monkey as God, the snake as God and even human beings as

manifestations of God!

 

Islam, on the contrary, exhorts man to consider himself and his

surroundings as examples of Divine Creation rather than as divinity

itself. Muslims therefore believe that everything is God's i.e.

the word `God' with an apostrophe `s'. In other words

the Muslims believe that everything belongs to God. The trees belong

to God, the sun belongs to God, the moon belongs to God, the monkey

belongs to God, the snake belongs to God, the human beings belong to

God and everything in this universe belongs to God.

 

Thus the major difference between the Hindu and the Muslim beliefs

is the difference of the apostrophe `s'. The Hindu says

everything is God. The Muslim says everything is God's.

 

2. Concept of God according to Hindu Scriptures:

 

We can gain a better understanding of the concept of God in Hinduism

by analysing Hindu scriptures.

 

BHAGAVAD GITA

 

The most popular amongst all the Hindu scriptures is the Bhagavad

Gita.

 

Consider the following verse from the Gita: " Those whose

intelligence has been stolen by material desires surrender unto

demigods and follow the particular rules and regulations of worship

according to their own natures. " [bhagavad Gita 7:20]

 

The Gita states that people who are materialistic worship demigods

i.e. `gods' besides the True God.

 

UPANISHADS:

 

The Upanishads are considered sacred scriptures by the Hindus.

 

The following verses from the Upanishads refer to the Concept of God:

 

" Ekam evadvitiyam "

" He is One only without a second. "

[Chandogya Upanishad 6:2:1]1

 

" Na casya kascij janita na cadhipah. "

" Of Him there are neither parents nor lord. "

[svetasvatara Upanishad 6:9]2

 

" Na tasya pratima asti "

" There is no likeness of Him. "

[svetasvatara Upanishad 4:19]3

 

The following verses from the Upanishad allude to the inability of

man to imagine God in a particular form:

 

" Na samdrse tisthati rupam asya, na caksusa pasyati kas canainam. "

" His form is not to be seen; no one sees Him with the eye. "

[svetasvatara Upanishad 4:20]4

 

THE VEDAS

 

Vedas are considered the most sacred of all the Hindu scriptures.

There are four principal Vedas: Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samveda and

Atharvaveda.

 

Yajurveda

 

The following verses from the Yajurveda echo a similar concept of

God:

 

" na tasya pratima asti

" There is no image of Him. "

[Yajurveda 32:3]5

 

" shudhama poapvidham "

" He is bodyless and pure. "

[Yajurveda 40:8]6

 

" Andhatama pravishanti ye asambhuti mupaste "

" They enter darkness, those who worship the natural elements " (Air,

Water, Fire, etc.). " They sink deeper in darkness, those who worship

sambhuti. "

[Yajurveda 40:9]7

 

Sambhuti means created things, for example table, chair, idol, etc.

 

The Yajurveda contains the following prayer:

 

" Lead us to the good path and remove the sin that makes us stray and

wander. "

[Yajurveda 40:16]8

 

Atharvaveda

 

The Atharvaveda praises God in Book 20, hymn 58 and verse 3:

 

" Dev maha osi "

" God is verily great "

[Atharvaveda 20:58:3]9

 

Rigveda

 

The oldest of all the vedas is Rigveda. It is also the one

considered most sacred by the Hindus. The Rigveda states in Book 1,

hymn 164 and verse 46:

 

" Sages (learned Priests) call one God by many names. "

[Rigveda 1:164:46]

 

The Rigveda gives several different attributes to Almighty God. Many

of these are mentioned in Rigveda Book 2 hymn 1.

 

Among the various attributes of God, one of the beautiful attributes

mentioned in the Rigveda Book II hymn 1 verse 3, is Brahma. Brahma

means `The Creator'. Translated into Arabic it means Khaaliq.

Muslims can have no objection if Almighty God is referred to as

Khaaliq or `Creator' or Brahma. However if it is said that

Brahma is Almighty God who has four heads with each head having a

crown, Muslims take strong exception to it.

 

Describing Almighty God in anthropomorphic terms also goes against

the following verse of Yajurveda:

 

" Na tasya Pratima asti "

" There is no image of Him. "

[Yajurveda 32:3]

 

Another beautiful attribute of God mentioned in the Rigveda Book II

hymn 1 verse 3 is Vishnu. Vishnu means `The Sustainer'.

Translated into Arabic it means Rabb. Again, Muslims can have no

objection if Almighty God is referred to as Rabb or 'Sustainer' or

Vishnu. But the popular image of

 

Vishnu among Hindus, is that of a God who has four arms, with one of

the right arms holding the Chakra, i.e. a discus and one of the left

arms holding a `conch shell', or riding a bird or reclining

on a snake couch. Muslims can never accept any image of God. As

mentioned earlier this also goes against Svetasvatara Upanishad

Chapter 4 verse 19.

 

" Na tasya pratima asti "

" There is no likeness of Him "

 

The following verse from the Rigveda Book 8, hymn 1, verse 1 refer

to the Unity and Glory of the Supreme Being:

 

" Ma cid anyad vi sansata sakhayo ma rishanyata "

" O friends, do not worship anybody but Him, the Divine One. Praise

Him alone. "

[Rigveda 8:1:1]10

 

" Devasya samituk parishtutih "

" Verily, great is the glory of the Divine Creator. "

[Rigveda 5:1:81]11

 

Brahma Sutra of Hinduism:

 

The Brahma Sutra of Hinduism is:

 

" Ekam Brahm, dvitiya naste neh na naste kinchan "

 

" There is only one God, not the second; not at all, not at all, not

in the least bit. "

 

Thus only a dispassionate study of the Hindu scriptures can help one

understand the concept of God in Hinduism.

 

Hinduism by Dr. Zakir Naik

 

 

-----------------

 

BRAHMAN

 

Brahman is the central theme of almost all the Upanishads. Brahman

is the indescribable, inexhaustible, omniscient, omnipresent,

original, first, eternal and absolute principle who is without a

beginning, without an end , who is hidden in all and who is the

cause, source, material and effect of all creation known, unknown

and yet to happen in the entire universe.

 

He is the incomprehensible, unapproachable radiant being whom the

ordinary senses and ordinary intellect cannot fathom grasp or able

to describe even with partial success. He is the mysterious Being

totally out of the reach of all sensory activity, rationale effort

and mere intellectual, decorative and pompous endeavor.

 

The Upanishads describe Him as the One and indivisible, eternal

universal self, who is present in all and in whom all are present.

Generally unknown and mysterious to the ordinary masses, Brahman of

the Upanishads remained mostly confined to the meditative minds of

the ancient seers who considered Him to be too sacred and esoteric

to be brought out and dissected amidst public glare.

 

Though impassioned and above the ordinary feelings of the mind, the

masters of the Upanishads some times could not suppress the glory,

the emotion, the passion and the poetry that accompanied the vast

and utterly delightful , inner experience of His vast vision. In the

Mundaka Upanishad the mind explodes to reverberate with this verse, "

Imperishable is the Lord of love, as from a blazing fire thousands

of sparks leap forth, so millions of beings arise from Him and

return to Him. " Again in the Katha Upanishad we come across a very

poetic and emphatic expression, " In His robe are woven heaven and

earth, mind and body...He is the bridge from death to deathless

life. "

 

The Brahman of the Upanishads is not meant for the ordinary or the

ignorant souls, who are accustomed to seek spiritual solace through

ritualistic practices and rationalization of knowledge. Discipline,

determination, guidance form a self-realized soul, purity of mind,

mastery of the senses, self-control and desireless actions are some

of the pre-requisites needed to achieve even a semblance of success

on this path. Only the strong of the heart and pure of the mind can

think of dislodging layer after layer of illusion and ignorance that

surrounds him and see the golden light of Truth beckoning from

beyond.

 

He is not like the other gods either. He is incomprehensible even to

almost all the gods. And He chooses not to be worshipped in the

temples and other places of worship but in one's heart and mind as

the indweller of the material body and master of the senses, the

charioteer. He is too remote and incomprehensible to be revered and

approached with personal supplications although He is the deepest

and the highest vision mankind could ever conceive of or attain.

 

The weak and the timid stand no chance to approach Him even

remotely, except through some circuitous route. For the

materialistic and the otherworldly who excel in the art of

converting everything and anything into a source of personal gain,

He does not offer any attraction, solace or security as a personal

God.

 

That is why we do not see any temples or forms of ritualistic

worship existing for Brahman either at present or in the past. We

only hear of fire sacrifice, later to be called Nachiketa fire, to

attain Him, which was taught to the young Nachiketa by Lord of

Death, but lost in the course of time to us. Perhaps the sacrifice

was more a meditative or spiritual practice involving the sacrifice

of soul consciousness than a ritual worship.

 

Whatever it is, the fact is that Brahman of the Upanishads is more

appealing to the seekers of Truth and Knowledge than seekers of

material gains. Even during the Islamic rule when the principles of

monotheism challenged the very foundations of Hinduism , Brahman was

never brought into the glare of public debate to challenge the

invading and overwhelming ideas of the monotheistic foreign theology.

 

And even during the period of the Bhakti movement , when the path of

devotion assumed unparalleled importance in the medieval Hindu

society, Brahman was somehow not made the center of direct worship

in the form of Brahman as such. He became the personal God with a

name and form, but as Brahman remained out side the preview of the

Bhakti movement.

 

Perhaps the exclusion was so evident and seemingly so intentional

that even Lord Brahma, the first among the Trinity and the first

among the created, was also simultaneously excluded from the

ritualistic worship, probably for the similarity in names. Very few

temples exist for this god even today in India, probably as He is

seen more as a source of intelligence and creativity than of

material wealth.

 

Some Upanishads do describe Brahman as the Lord of Love. It is a

description born out of pure personal experience of a seeker of

truth, not from a devotee's imaginative and self-induced emotional

energy. The description and approach, therefore, is more

philosophical and impressionably revelatory in its approach than

feverishly emotional or reverently devotional. The reason was not

difficult to understand.

 

Brahman was too remote, indifferent, disinterested, too vast a

principle to be reduced into meaningful and intellectually

satisfying forms and shapes and worshipped as such. Existing beyond

all the surface activities of illusory life, he was like the remote

star, heard but rarely seen, seen but vaguely remembered, remembered

but rarely explicable, unlike the daily sun that traversed across

the sky spreading its splendor in all directions and appealing to

the common man with its intensity, visible luminosity and comforting

him with its assuring and predictable routine.

 

Hidden, however, in the practice of Bhakti was the inherent and

inviolable belief that the aim of all devotion was the attainment of

the Supreme Self, though the path chosen for the purpose was

circuitous and symbolic, rarely suggestive of any direct involvement

of the eternal Brahman Himself in His original formless condition.

Since the mind could only comprehend and derive inspiration in a

language that it can understand and interpret, the Saguna Brahman,

Iswara in the form of various manifestations became the object of

devotion and personal worship.

 

But the same was not true of the formless Nirguna Brahman, beyond

duality and activity. Ignoring the citadels of human civilization,

He, the Absolute, continued to remain in the hearts of His spiritual

aspirants, away from the din of materialistic life. He remained

confined even as of today, to a few illumined minds, guiding them in

His mysterious and invisible ways through the minds of self-realized

souls, who have been too spiritualistic and disinterested in worldly

life to consider any thing other than self as a matter of spiritual

interest.

 

The ancient seers described Brahman as the One eternal principle,

the unity behind all, the connecting principle, the light shining

through all. But at the same time they also referred to him

variously as almost every thing. He was thus One and the many, the

finite and the infinite, the center as well as the circumference,

the enjoyer as well the enjoyer, the hidden as well as the manifest,

in a nut shell, every thing and any thing that we can conceive of or

imagine or perhaps much more than that. Incomprehensible even to the

gods, as Kena Upanishad narrates, He stands above all, tall and

mysterious, almost incommunicable except through personal experience

and inner voyage.

 

As a formless Being He was the Nirguna Brahman, the unqualified

principle totally beyond the reach of all levels of intelligence.

Assuming myriad forms He becomes Saguna Brahman, the one with

attributes and qualifications. In this capacity as the formless and

the One with form, He becomes all the multiplicity in this vast

universe. He becomes everything and also nothing. Thus He is the day

and night, light and darkness, knowledge and ignorance, the river

and the ocean, the sky and the earth, the sound and the silence, the

smallest as well as biggest of all and also the abyss of the

mysterious nothingness.

 

The attributes are many and repetitively suggestive of His

universality and His unquestionable supremacy. This existence of the

duality and the myriad contradictions inherent in the creation of

life are the riddles which the minds of the disciples were expected

to understand and assimilate till all the confusion and

contradiction becomes reduced to one harmonious and meaningful mass

of Truth.

 

In the Katha Upanishad we come across this explanation of Brahman

being compared to the Aswaththa tree in reverse ,whose roots are

above and the branches spread down below. " Its pure root is Brahman

from whom the world draws nourishment and whom none can surpass. "

Actually this is an analogy drawn from the Sun whose base is above

and whose rays spread downwards in thousand directions.

 

Myriad are the ways in which Brahman is described in the Upanishads.

The verses strenuously struggle to explain the novice students of

spiritual practice the immensity of the object of their meditation.

Theirs is a feeling of respect and reverence mixed with fear and

awe. Even the gods seems to be not very comfortable with this

concept of an unknown, mysterious and unfathomable God. The Lord of

death explains to the young Nachiketa, " In fear of Him the fire

burns, the sun shines, the clouds rain and the winds blow. In fear

of Him death stalks about to kill. "

 

He is the creator, the life giver and also the reliever of the

devoted and determined from Bondage. The manifest universe is his

creation. He created it through Self-projection, out of Ananda, pure

Delight. The process of creation is not very explicitly mentioned

but one can draw some inferences from verses such as this, " The

deathless Self meditated upon Himself and projected the universe as

an evolutionary energy. From this energy developed life, the mind,

the elements, and the world of karma. "

 

This is not the God who can be supplicated with rituals and

sacrifices. The Upanishadic seers did not show much respect to the

outer aspects of religious practice. The rituals according to them

constituted the lower knowledge. " Such rituals, " declares Mundaka

Upanishad, " are unsafe rafts for crossing the sea of worldly life,

of birth and death. Doomed to shipwreck are they who try to cross

the sea of worldly life on these poor rafts. " The argument does not

end here. It goes on, " Ignorant of their ignorance, yet wise in

their estimate, these deluded men proud of their learning go round

and round like the blind, led by the blind. Living in darkness,

immature unaware of any higher good or goal, they fall again and

again into the sea. "

 

Hinduism: Belief in One God

 

The Hindus believe in many gods and goddesses. At the same time they

also believe in the existence on one Supreme God, whom they call

variously as Paramatma (Supreme Self), Parameshwar (Supreme Lord),

Parampita (Supreme Father). Iswara, Maheswara, Bhagawan, Purusha,

Purushottama, Hiranyagarbha and so on.

 

God is one, but also many. He manifests Himself in innumerable forms

and shapes. As Purusha (Universal Male), He enters Prakriti (Nature,

Matter or Divine Energy) and brings forth the numerous worlds and

beings into existence. He upholds His entire creation with His

unlimited powers.

 

He is both the Known and the Unknown, the Being as well as the Non-

Being, Reality as well as Unreality. As the Unknown, He is rarely

known and worshipped for difficult and painful is the path for those

who choose to worship Him as the Unmanifest (The Bhagavad-Gita

XII.6).

 

He exists in all and all beings exist in him. There is nothing other

than Him, and there is nothing that is outside of Him. He is

Imperishable, unknowable, immortal, infinite, without a beginning

and without an end. All the same when worshipped with intense

devotion and unshakeable faith, He responds to the calls of His

devotees and comes to their aid and rescue.

 

All the gods and goddess are His manifestations only. In His female

aspect He is Shakti, who as the Divine Universal Mother assists the

whole creation to proceed through the process of evolution in Her

own mysterious ways.

 

The relationship between man and God is purely personal and each can

approach Him in his own way. There are no fixed rules and no central

controlling authority on the subject of do's and don'ts. There are

of course scriptures and Smritis but whether to follow them or not

is purely an individual choice.

 

The concept of monotheism is not new to Hinduism. It is as old as

the Vedas themselves. References to One indivisible and mysterious

God are found in the Rigveda itself. The concept is the central

theme of all the Upanishads in which He is variously referred as

Brahman, Iswara, Hiranyagarbha, Asat etc.

 

While the students of Upanishads tried to understand Him through the

path of knowledge and there by made it the exclusive domain of a few

enlightened persons, the bhakti marg or the path of devotion brought

Him closer to the masses. The One Imperishable and Ancient Being was

no more a God of remote heights, but down to the earth, ready to

help His needy devotees and willing to perform miracles if necessary.

 

The rise of tantric cults added a new dimension to our understanding

of Him. To the tantric worshippers the Supreme Self is the Universal

Mother. Purusha is subordinate to Her and willing to play a

secondary role in Her creation. By Himself He cannot initiate

creation unless He joins with His Shakti.

 

On the abstract level He is satchitananda. Truth, Consciousness and

Bliss. He is the inhabitant of the whole world. There is nothing

that is outside of Him or without Him. He exists in the individual

being as Atman, the Enjoyer who delights in Himself, without

undergoing any change, but willing to participate in the cycle of

births and deaths and bear witness to all the illusions of life.

 

He can be realized in many ways, which broadly fall into three main

categories: the path of knowledge, the path of devotion and the path

of renunciation. Of this the middle one is the best, the first one

is very difficult and the third one requires immense sacrifice and

inner purification. In the Bhagavad-Gita we come across the path of

action which combines the rest of the three into one integrated

whole in which a devotee has to live his life with a sense of

supreme sacrifice, performing his actions with detachment, without

any desire for the fruit of actions and offering them to God with

pure devotion and total surrender.

 

Hindus have a very broader approach to the concept of God. The names

that people give to Him are just mere reference points for the sake

of our understanding. How can He have names, who is actually beyond

all words and thoughts? He represent the loftiest ideal which

mankind can aspire to achieve. He is the goal and reaching Him in

our individual ways is the very purpose of our lives. Those who

quarrel on his name are blind men who grope in darkness and go to

the worlds of ignorance.

 

Truly the Brahman of Hinduism represents the Highest principle which

the human mind can ever conceive of. He is not God of just one world

or a few worlds, but represents the entire known and unknown

Universe as well as the past, the present and the future that is yet

to come.

 

Brahman

http://www.hinduwebsite.com/onegod.htm