Indian thought has always tried to synthesise the diverse strands of human nature, its aspirations and seekings, its higher sublime flights and its more mundane strivings. This is reflected everywhere including its religious side.
On the one side Indian thought is not just polytheistic but pantheistic. It sees the Godhead in everything; behind what we consider as natural elements as also behind what we consider as supernatural elements. Nature and Supernature is only a hierarchical arrangement of One Reality that surpasses both and yet, and – here comes the beautiful synthesis, – expresses through both. What we consider as Nature is only a diminished figure of a concealed Supernature waiting for our discovery. Thus, on the other side, Indian thought is deeply monotheistic.
These two sides of One Reality are best expressed in the ancient formulas of the Upanishads:
– ekam satyam vipra bahudha vadanti: The Truth is but One, the wise call it by different names
– ekamevadviteeyam: The One without a second
– ekobahunām: The One who has many names
– ekambeejam bahudha yat karoshi: The One seed that became the many and, finally, a most powerful one,
– sarvakhalvidambrahman: Know all this that is here as the Brahman (the sole Reality behind all things).
The gods are therefore powers and aspects of the One who alone is self-luminous, Pure and unstained, Shadowless Light, All-Love, All-Power, All-Wisdom, All-Bliss.
They are many and arranged hierarchically corresponding to the many planes of cosmic existence. Thus, when the great seer Yajnavalkya is asked by Gargi as to how many gods are there.
Yajnavalkya replies that there are indeed thirty-three million gods or three million or even three thousand or three or one and a half or just one, if you please.
The sense is clear the gods are emanations of the One Divine like countless rays emerging from the Sun. The first three emanations are the aspects and Powers that are engaged in the Creation, Preservation and the Dissolution of the universe. As they move further, they multiply in multiples of three and work in the smallest of elements of the universe.
And who are the Titans if there is only the One? They are the shadows of the gods as it falls upon creation. The principle is very simple. A god is one aspect of the Infinite and by its very nature, we may say that a god takes birth when the Divine withholds all else within and puts forth only one or two aspects in the front. It is this frontal consciousness that later lapses into its very opposite by forgetting the Oneness from which it emerged. It feels itself separate and enters into a state of division. Thus, while the gods create forms in harmony with Oneness and the Divine law in Creation, the titans create forms that are not in tune with the cosmos and the Divine law. The result is an increase in disorder. Again, while the gods preserve what needs still to be preserved for the right balance of creation, the titans preserve those elements that need to pass out and whose hour is over by the Divine dispensation and decree. So too with destruction. The gods destroy what needs to be destroyed for the good of the totality, to assist the creation’s forward march. The titans destroy all that comes in their way, in the way of their personal, separate goal and not in harmony with the greater Divine Law. The gods carry creation forward in the evolutionary journey, the titans hold it back and even try to slide it back. Thus, the gods and the titans are forever in struggle in the cosmos, and in every human heart.
Yet, the two may be seen as representing two stages of the evolutionary growth. Our journey starts as a darkness, in the womb of division, ignorance, obscurity, under the tutelage of the dark mother, Diti, the mother of division and ignorance. She too is a mother and holds her children dearly. In the legends She is shown as coaxing her children, the daityas, sons of darkness and ignorance with ambition and desire. She even goads them to win the crown of the gods that ever remains beyond their reach. Yet through these means She stimulates them, brings out their force, though not the wisdom. Restless, they strive for personal egoistic aims and that is good for them lest they completely lapse into tamas, obscurity and darkness, in a state of torpor, clouding and utter confusion as if drugged and drunk. The dark mother pulls them out of this torpor and as they grow in power, shows them the crown and the kingdom of the gods to covet and enjoy.
They strive, sometimes momentarily succeed as in certain stories, dethroning Indra. Yet they are unable to touch Indra’s consort Sachi. For Sachi is Truth-conscious, even though her origins are from the world of the Titans yet she has ascended to the throne of Indra, not by brute violent force of Titans but by the power and the Light of Truth. She and the gods then turn to their own origin, their Source of Light and Might, the Mother of the gods, the luminous mother Aditi, who dwells forever in the undivided Consciousness. Then Aditi works out a way to bring back the cosmic order.
Diti and Aditi, the dark and the luminous Mothers are the two steps of evolution. When our souls chastened and strengthened through conflict, opposition, struggle and suffering is ready then mother Diti delivers it out of her dark womb and we are then carried by mother Aditi in Her Vast and Strong and Luminous embrace to heights of freedom, to pinnacles of joy, to the splendours of a higher Supernature.
At Her highest, She stands one with the Supreme, the Shakti, the Parameshwari, the Power and Knowledge of the Supreme:
Om Anandmayi, Chaitanyamayee, Satyamayee Parame
Alok Pandey
