7.1.3 Hindu Teaching About God

If we look at the history of Hinduism, the early period stressed the vision of God as personal. The 33 Vedic devas, led by Indra, the King of Heaven, are all personal in nature. It was not until later that the idea of a supreme transpersonal cosmic spiritual reality was celebrated in the Upanishads [later Hindu Scriptures]. A well-known Hindu group that stresses God as personal is ISKCON, the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, popularly known as “Hare Krishna.”

The six different ‘insights’ [Sad dasanas] of Hinduism into God are mutually contradictory. Vedanta is pantheistic [teaching many nature gods]; Mimamsa says God has no authority and the Vedas [Scriptures] are not divine revelation; and Vaisheshika claims that matter formed from the difference between atoms, not God or His creation.

If there is such fundamental contradiction within the Hindu writings about who God is, then we are left with a most searching question: If ‘religion’ is essentially about the ‘rebinding’ [as the word means] of God with mankind, how valid can Hinduism be, if it is self-admittedly confused about the most elemental issues relating to God Himself?