The following is some thoughts I wrote down on the concept of Brahman, pantheism, and the Maha-Mantra. I myself am not a Hindu, but I do practice the Maha-Mantra and have naturalistic pantheist views, along the lines of Einstein and Spinoza. Comments are welcome.
Hindus believe in a pantheistic god called Brahman. Brahman is you and me and everything else that makes up the universe. Brahman doesn’t exist, Brahman is existence itself, Brahman isn’t all knowing, Brahman is knowledge itself.
The Maha-Mantra’s goal, to my understanding, is to strengthen and increase your love of god through a higher state of consciousness. Therefore, the Maha-Mantra’s goal is to increase your love of existence and knowledge, of life itself. An admirable goal, if I may say so.
As well as this, I have found that Japa has greatly increased my concentration, peace, and control of mind. Japa works for me, but that is not to say that it will work for all, and Brahman is not without its problems.
Brahman, as we know, is existence itself and knowledge itself, therefore it is the existence and knowledge of racism and murder. But is this Brahman’s fault? The answer is a yes, but the answer is also a no.
I don’t think that Brahman is a conscious being, besides the creatures - such as birds and bees - that are attributes of it. Knowledge itself is not an evil thing, it is what is done with knowledge that is right or wrong.
It is up to us, therefore, as the conscious attributes of Brahman to alter ourselves for the better, bettering Brahman. And I believe that increasing our love of Brahman - life, knowledge, and the universe - will help us do just that.
[This message has been edited by Raw_Power (edited 11-27-2006).]
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