Reason for various gods

Had a thought, that the image of god throughout various religious faiths, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduisim. They all have various beliefs and different deitys that all look completely different now. What I was thinking as god, the matrix, the field whatever you want to call it. Is faceless, very hard to comprehend, all the descriptions of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita were all to complex for Arjuna to understand, so he had to see through gods eyes, but Krishna explains I'm in this form to you as it is easier for you to perceive me. Basically to summarize this, we are given all these various religions and spiritual paths as its easier for us to cope, comprehend, and familiarize ourselves with something familiar, another human being is somewhat easier to understand compared to infinite vastness.

What exactly is the point of all this, hmm well in short its that no matter what decision we make all the little streams and rivers all lead back to the ocean or the source. I feel if you truely believe and have others that have the same train of thought for the same things you want you can make them happened, even by yourself, I have had many of times where I have steered situations with no physical or verbal involvement. By either tapping into the Akashic record, or realizing your god like state of being, and using the source for your needs, either to heal someone else or protect yourself, make things happen a certain way, change your reality from what it is. If we are all drops of water from one source where we recycle back into after a time. To keep that self awareness, identity and separation is to come down as a single rain drop, but through death you become single and not know where you begin or end, if you try to move towards god you will never catch them as you and god are one in the same.

Hardest part of life is life not knowing your purpose why your here, why things suck so much and why you have to ignore all the bad stuff to live life as ignorant as possible to be happy so your not constantly dreading on all the craziness going on in the world. I haven't really tapped on what I wanted to say just yet, its not coming out cant recall what I wanted to say.

My dear Arjuna, O son of Prtha, see now My opulences, hundreds of thousands of varied divine and multicolored forms.

O best of the Bharatas, see here the different manifestations of Adityas, Vasus, Rudras, Asvini-kumaras and all the other demigods. Behold the many wonderful things which no one has ever seen or heard of before.

O Arjuna, whatever you wish to see, behold at once in this body of Mine! This universal form can show you whatever you now desire to see and whatever you may want to see in the future. Everything--moving and nonmoving--is here completely, in one place.

But you cannot see Me with your present eyes. Therefore I give you divine eyes. Behold My mystic opulence!

www.mesacc.edu...

Innerestin.'

"High mysticism" as found in the austere spirituality of faiths like Vedanta, Zen, and certain forms of Chrisitan monsaticism only truly appeals to a rarified group of people who have come face to face with the Divine.

But a spiritual diet made wholly of unleavened Union with the Transcendent is a bit too dry and unpalatable for most people, who need devotionalism...devotion to Krishna, devotion to Christ, whatever it may be. For some reason most people feel the need to put a human (or animal) face on the Divine. I think devotionalism is a valid form of spirituality, but generally speaking the broader the appeal and the shallower the true spirit, the more devotionalist a faith is likely to be.

Something I've pondered before: Is the need to proliferate hundreds and thousands of different dieties somehow satisfied in modern humans by pop-culture phenomena such as superheros, sports heroes, collectables, etc.?

reply to post by silent thunder


Thats a good thought on all those that we as a human race put on pedal stools and treat like gods, from musicians, actors, fictional characters, super heroes like you said, seems almost every week a new super hero movie is out.

The part about the devotional service though, is what I was following Bhakti Yoga, loving devotional service to Krishna, I will say it got me to the highest point I have been spiritually, I was noticing things and feeling things that most people will never understand. Then I crashed to where I couldn't handle being that vulnerable to everything living very strictly, became depressing. So I am trying to move to another method, right now trying something new.

reply to post by phiktion


Well, as a pagan I get what you mean.
God is so hard to comprehend it seems easier to break the divine down into dieties that can be contemplated more readily.
But it is more than that too - environment has a lot to do with the formation of gods, I think. It seems to me that the big 3 - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - they were all desert religions to some extent. The desert is vast, you can get lost in it, and it can be incredibly cruel - you do it right, or you die.

Where you have lusher lands and environments - like India, the Americas, Greece, around the Nile - where it is SO fertile, you usually find female as well as male Gods and their interaction and families, and often it's about Earth and Sky to some extent, and their marriage and interplay. In Egypt, which was well aware of the desert, you have Set, and once again, he's given this harsh, powerful persona. (Like the desert.)

Well then you can get into a long discussion about soft polytheism vrs hard, as well.
One thing I do like about paganism is that 'the gods' are NAMED. I don't run around saying I am a Christian when what I am really worshipping is MARS, God of War. If I run after beauty and I spend my time and money on cosmetics and plastic surgery and working out, I might say I worship Aphrodite- I won't be like Tammy Faye crying over 'JESUS" with those long crazy eyelashes.

And by having an entire pantheon, I can bring my worship and sense of the divine into whatever I'm doing in a very focused way, and I have a good enough working sense of the Gods I have and hold to make better sense of the puzzle of life and human existence - to me.

I like to that I consider my Gods somewhat in competition for my attention. That gives me a bit to deal with, mortal though I am.

Doesn't pop culture exist really because in the high places of our cultures, we don't have any geniune heroes.

Today the personalities that occupy time on today's media are all either bent, shallow and corrupt.

The heroes of old or the image people admired might have displayed human weakness but in the areas they were representative of life, they were pure in spirit and intention.

I see pop culture and celebrities being more like our substitute for royalty.
Of course then the Gods are over the royals - eye of the pyramid thing, man's seemingly want to form and respect heirarchies or something. Even in a lot of pantheons of the Gods, you have heirarchies of lesser Gods and some sort of 'King and Queen" God.

Always gotta look to someone - so look up - up - up - up - Oh, there's the top guy, that's GOD.

Yeah baby, anything to keep from looking over at your ugly neighbor and contemplating he or she as divine. lol

reply to post by phiktion


so what are you trying now ?

I love the Bhagavad Gita, it blows the Bible clean out of the water. The way i understand the various god's in Hinduism is that they are various types of energies that can be tapped into by the people for various thing's. Like Ganesha is the Lord of success i.e. pray to this energy if you want wisdom or wealth. I think it relates to Archetypes in some way, you tap into the Archetypal energy.

hinduism.about.com...

At the end of the day it's all various manifestations of the one eternal god.

Originally posted by hadriana
I see pop culture and celebrities being more like our substitute for royalty.
Of course then the Gods are over the royals - eye of the pyramid thing, man's seemingly want to form and respect heirarchies or something. Even in a lot of pantheons of the Gods, you have heirarchies of lesser Gods and some sort of 'King and Queen" God.

Always gotta look to someone - so look up - up - up - up - Oh, there's the top guy, that's GOD.

Yeah baby, anything to keep from looking over at your ugly neighbor and contemplating he or she as divine. lol

I take your point and its made me wonder, are we being distracted away from concentrating of developing our own individuality. Does always looking outside of one's self, stop one from seeing that link life gives us to God.

Yup totally agree with you, whatever divine force or being(s) that might be out there is obviously infinitely more than our human mind could ever hope to comprehend. Therefore it makes sense that we would chose to think of the divine as various Gods or Goddesses as part of a pantheon that is unique to each individual culture. This way we could interact with whatever supreme being(s) that is out there in a way we can comprehend and relevant to our needs at the time.


Now if only we could stop killing each other over or various different religious beliefs we would be sorted.

Originally posted by bestintentions
reply to post by phiktion

 

so what are you trying now ?

I have been just trying to get back to a more stable ground point before I start climbing the spiritual mountain again, it kicked my ass last time I went up it.