The Ten Commandments and Religious Conversion - Part 2
“I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” So says the first of the Ten Commandments in the Bible.
The normal and most superficial way the Christian church interprets this is that their God, whom they call the Father, is the only God there is on this earth, and the God of the Muslim community, Allah, and the Gods of the Hindus or of any other religious or cultural groupings have no validity whatsoever, and the followers of such religions are “pagans”, “heathens”, “infidels” etc in the eyes of the Christians. Isn’t it interesting that the Muslims also say the same thing, that their Allah is the only God and there is no other god other than Allah? They too refer to non-Muslims as “infidels” or “Kafirs”.
It is funny that such claims are made by the followers of the two youngest religions in this world, Christianity which is just about 2000 years old and Islam which is hardly 1400 years old. Is it any coincidence that both of them had their origins in the same geographical location? Add to it the fact that both of them have a common parent in Judaism, the Jewish religion, which predates Christ by a couple of millennia and is also a monotheistic religion, just like Christianity and Islam.
If the Jewish God, Yahweh, is the only true God as claimed by the Jews, and Christianity’s “Father” is also the only true God as claimed by the Christians, and the Islamic Allah is again the only true God as claimed by the Muslims, which one is well and truly the really Real God? Is it that the Jewish Yahweh became rather senile by the time the “Father” of Christ came around, and hence retired gracefully to give way to the “Father”; and that Allah dethroned the “Father” 600 years later? If that is so, where is the God now who is the “Father” of the Christians, and in whose name the Pope and the other Christians want to convert the Hindus and other Asians?
On the other hand, Hinduism, which has been around for a few millennia before Christ, proclaims loud and clear without any ambiguity that God, or the Absolute Truth (referred to as SAT), is only one, and the learned men call IT by various names, be it Yahweh or Father or Allah or Vishnu or Shiva or whatever (Ekam Sat, Vipraah Bahudhaa Vadanthi). There is no need to speculate whether the “Father” displaced Yahweh, and was in turn thrown out by Allah, since all of them refer to the same single entity which is the Ultimate Truth.
This same Absolute Universal Truth or God, as Brahman, has given ITS Word through a long list of Rishis to the Hindus; and, as Father, given ITS Word through a long list of prophets ending with Christ to the Christians; and, as Allah, given ITS Word through a line of prophets ending with Prophet Mohammed to the Muslims. This saying, Ekam Sat Vipraah Bahudhaa Vadanthi, has another connotation also. It is just as valid for any human being to talk about and describe God and ITS attributes as it is valid for the five blind men to describe the elephant after touching and feeling the different parts of its anotamy. If there are a billion people on earth, God reveals ITself in a billion different ways to them, depending on their own individual experiences. So to claim that “my” God is superior to “your” God, or “my” religion is superior to “your” religion is, on the face of it, fallacious. If that is so, what should one say about the ignorance as well as arrogance involved in converting somebody from one religion to another on the plea that one is superior to the other?
The very first verse of the Isaavaasya Upanishad says, “Isaa-vaasyam idham sarvam yatkincha jagatyaam jagat,” which means that in this dynamic universe, where everything within it is in a constant state of flux, undergoing change every second or microsecond, the only permanent entity is Isa or God who permeates as well as envelopes every single thing in the universe, organic or inorganic, solid, liquid or gaseous, the suns, the moons, the planets, the galaxies, deep space, the men and women, the animals and birds, the mountains and trees and oceans of this world, and just everything. The Vedic religion which is the base for Hinduism, never thought of God as existing and valid only for the small region of this earth constituting India, but as an all-encompassing Supreme Being who created and sustained the entire universe. And their prayers usually end with the invocation, “Sarve Janaah Sukhino Bhavanthu; Lokaas Samasthah Sukhino Bhavanthu,” meaning let all the people in the world – irrespective of who they are and to which part of the world they belong – enjoy a healthy, wealthy, bounteous life. And they complete the invocation with the chant for Peace everywhere – Om Shanthih Shanthih Shanthih.
On the other hand, what does one see of the ONE AND ONLY GOD of the monotheistic Judaic tradition? This GOD seems to exist only for the Israelites, and does not care for the other tribes of the region like the Canaanites, Moabites, Hittites and so on, or for the Egyptians or the Philistines or the Phoenicians or the ever so many other peoples of this world, leave alone the universe. This GOD seems to be more a Super-king or Super-emperor or Super-president of the Israelites than anything worthy of the term GOD. And it is this sort of God which the Pope and his followers want to impose on the Hindus and other Asians by converting them to Christianity! It does sound a bit ludicrous.
Kenneth C. Davis, in his delightful book “Don’t Know Much about the Bible” (Avon Books Inc., New York), puts this in proper perspective. He says: “Interesting. God didn’t say, “I am the only God,” but rather that he is Number One…” in comparison with the creator god El and the storm god Baal, and so on. “We have come to take for granted the idea that Judaism invented the notion of “One God” right from the start. But the original conception of Israel’s Yahweh was the greatest among many; and only over time did Yahweh evolve into the “One God,” meaning the only God…… it does give pause to wonder if the God of an Orthodox Jew is the God of Pat Robertson or Jesse Jackson or the God (Allah) of an Iranian ayatollah.…….. The notion of a single God as the “True God” opens up the gates of intolerance. If people are really expected to hold the Ten Commandments, with its Judeo-Christian God, as an ideal for behavior, what does society do about all the other gods worshipped in a modern, pluralistic world? And then what happens to all those who choose to deny God’s existence? Granting this commandment the authority of “law of the land” clearly places such people in jeopardy of being second-class citizens, or even worse, dispensable……….”
Well, if one accepts the fact that “I am the Lord your God” refers to the one God who is common to the entire population of the world, irrespective of their religious beliefs and faiths, what exactly does this First Commandment mean? “You shall have no other gods,” cannot mean denying acceptance or recognition to Allah or Krishna or Rama whom the other religionists revere. Taken together with the words, “brought thee.......... out of the house of bondage,” does it not mean it is a warning against one falling prey to, and getting under bondage to, the umpteen temptations that abound in this world? Wine, women, wealth, power, pelf and so on have been major objects of worship at any era, and the Lord’s caution is against anybody getting addicted to, and becoming slaves to, any of these temptations which lead one away from the righteous path. Isn’t this precisely what Hinduism has prescribed since ages ago, to guard against kaama, kroda, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya, which translate as desire or lust for sensual enjoyment; anger or wrath; covetousness or greed; delusion or infatuation; intoxication or drunken madness as well as pride and arrogance; and finally envy or spite or malice? For added measure, Jesus Christ proclaims, “No one can be the slave of two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or be attached to the first and despise the second. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money.”(Matthew 6:24). What God conveys through this Commandment is obviously that, while enjoying material prosperity and comforts including sex, which God has created for us, we should not become addicted to and be slaves of these objects to the extent of forgetting God, but utilise all these blessings as means towards proceeding in the righteous path.
If Mr. Pope and his Christian flock are not aware of this simple explanation of the First Commandment, they have to be pitied for their ignorance. And if, while wallowing in this ignorance, they claim that their God is the only valid God, and carry on with their conversion programme, it would be nothing short of hypocrisy.
* * * * *
No comments:
Post a Comment