Hi everybody, this is my first real participation on this forum. I hope I don’t get banned!
I am a Roman Catholic, devoted to the Rosary. I have, in my life, explored many different spiritual paths. I was raised Catholic, and I abandoned the Church (though never completely) over the course of my life, and God brought me back to her. I now have no qualms about declaring myself Catholic, but I also have a lot of respect for sincere seekers after truth in many of the other traditions I have encountered in my life.
This thread is about Hinduism, which I think can more accurately be called Vedic Philosophy or Vedic Religion. Some have mentioned Brahmanism, which was the precessor of Vedism historically. I have a lot to say on a lot of all this; in this post, I will try to give just a brief overview.
There are four main classifications that religions in general fall into, to wit: Taoic, Vedic, Abrahamic, and Shamanic. Taoic religions originate in ancient China and are based around the idea of Tao. Examples are Taoism, Confucianism, Shintoism. Vedic religions originate in ancient India and have their roots in the Vedas, which are some of the oldest Scriptures in the world, fairly contemporary with Genesis. Examples are Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism. Shamanic religions are all over the world, and have their roots in the spiritual experiences of indigenous peoples. Native American religions are one example of these, and paganism in general (for example Wicca) falls into this category. Finally, Abrahamic religions are based in God’s own revelation and the covenant and promise He made to Abram of Ur (later Abraham), “I will make your descendants like the stars in the sky.” As most people are aware, this category includes Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. There is a fifth category that can be called Syncretistic religions, and these include the Sikh (which came about by the confluence of Islam and Hinduism, and is the fifth largest world religion, after Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism) and the Baha’i.
Catholicism is Christianity and thus is Abrahamic, but the word “catholic” means universal, and if the Church is to be truly universal, I think on some level it must also be seen as syncretistic. There is historical precedent for this. Saint Paul strove to be all things to all people, and early Catholic theology sought to incorporate both Hebrew and Greek philosophy. Saint Paul tried to explain the Gospel to the Athenians first by pointing to their own temple, “to an unknown god.” Later, Saint Augustine developed his theology by incorporating Plato, and later still, Saint Thomas Aquinas, by incorporating Aristotle.
I think it would be patently absurd to imagine that valid philosophical thought were limited to ancient Greece! To get back to the subject of this thread, the Vedic philosophy is an ancient and well-respected tradition. Further, evangelism in the East has simply not met with the popular success that it did in the West. There is nothing in the history of China or India that can be compared in any meaningful way to Christendom in Europe. Never has it been the case in those places that Christianity has been the majority religion, and China and India are well-known to be the two most populous countries in the world.
So. Great big introduction to my thoughts, long post (might have to break it into parts). But what shall I say to the topic at hand? I am a faithful Catholic. I am not interested in helping the perpetuation of Hinduism as a system of belief, or more accurately, as several systems of belief. But I have a lot of respect for the Vaishnavas I have met, and some of their theology strikes me as accurate. I believe that God’s Will is for the whole world to be Catholic, and further, I believe that it is His intention to accomplish His Will, and that He will infallibly do so. The Vaishnava sect of Hinduism is better known to most of us as the “Hare Krishnas.” They are not Monists, they are Theists. They do not hold that man can ever “become God” or “realize” he is God. Rather, they believe that God is God, and our eternal position is as servants of God. This teaching of theirs is one example of their accurate theology; the Catholic Church teaches exactly the same thing.
Moreover, Satan, too, is naturally a servant of God, as there is no other possible position for a creature to hold. God is able to use both good and evil to accomplish His good Purpose. The difference between Satan and Saint Michael is that Saint Michael loves God and serves Him willingly, whereas Satan hates God and serves Him in spite of himself. The reality of free will is simply this: that every creature must serve God, whether or not they want to, but the choice to co-operate or to rebel is the sovereign choice of the individual creature, with free will. Satan tried to contradict God’s Will, and he is unable to do so, since God is omnipotent. Yet God respects the free will of His creatures with immortal souls, and allows them to decide for themselves whether they will serve Him in loving obedience, or in hateful disobedience. Satan chose his own will over God; therefore everything he does with his own will is evil (since everything God wills is good, there is no other option if one wishes to rebel, than to become evil). But God uses both good and evil for His own good Purpose, so Satan serves God in spite of himself. God takes everything evil that Satan does and turns it around to work good with it, which increases Satan’s frustration and self-hatred. That is why we say at Easter, “O happy fault! O necessary sin of Adam, that merited for us Such a Redeemer!” God used the sin of Judas, which he committed with free will, to accomplish our Redemption. Nothing at all can ever ultimately contradict the Will of God.
(more to come. . .)
That should be your first clue there. To pray to demi-gods as you claim is for one thing a mortal sin. The First commandment I am the Lord your God you will have no gods before me.
or Girl! 