Hindu concept of God a bit like water’s three states

WATER exists in three states – gaseous (vapour), liquid (water), and solid (ice).

In the gaseous state it has no attributes or form. In the liquid state it has attributes such as smell, colour and taste, but still no form. In the solid state it has both attributes as well as form.

The Hindu concept of God follows the same principle.

In the primal state God has neither attributes nor form. It is all expansive, hence known as Brahman – that which pervades all. In the second state He has attributes such as love, compassion and charity but no form. In this state He is called Ishwara – The Lord. Ishwara then takes form for the projection, maintenance and dissolution of the universe. In this state He is known as Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva respectively.

The processes of projection, maintenance and dissolution are likened to the activities of a spider. The spider produces the filaments for its web from itself. It maintains the web for as long as it requires. Then it withdraws the filaments into itself once again. This process is an ongoing one.

It might so happen that the web may become damaged by some creature or twig. The spider then comes down from its lair and repairs the breach. Similarly whenever there is a breach of religiosity on earth God comes down to repair the damage. This “coming down” is called avatarana in Sans- krit. And that which comes down is called the Avatara – The Incarnation.

Now “creation” goes back millions of years. Mrs Ples of the Cradle of Humankind fame is said to have lived some three million years ago. It is only logical then to assume that such Avataras must have come down many times over that period whenever the balance was upset.

Hindus believe that there have been many incarnations, both minor as well as major. In this regard, Hindus talk of the 10 popular incarnations – the Fish, the Tortoise, the Boar, the Half Man-Half Lion, the Dwarf, Parasurama the savage man, Rama, Krishna, Buddha, and Kalki, who is still to come.

On close examination of these Avataras one sees a progressive evolution in keeping with not only the physical evolution of creatures on earth, but also a mental evolution of man.

The Hindu concept of God allows the votary to conceive of Him in accordance with his mental makeup. The “one size fits all” principle is not tenable to the Hindu.

Since God is transcendent as well as immanent, a Hindu sees no harm in worshipping Him even in creatures and other forms of creation. After all the effect is just the cause in a different situation.

Swami Chandikananda is a Hindu monk of the Ramakrishna Vivekananda Vedanta Society and is based in Port Elizabeth.