Western conceptions of eastern gods.

[Hare_Geist]

The word God is surrounded by a lot of connotation in the west, specifically Abrahamic in nature. Furthermore, many westerners are taught to have a sense of reverence for the Abrahamic deity, through which they acquire a certain deep-rooted feeling they associate simply with the term God. This makes me wonder if it is ever possible for a westerner to comprehend eastern gods, or if they will always interpret them through the feeling and connotations mentioned earlier, and if they will never be able to experience the same feeling and connotations the easterners have for the eastern gods.

When I read the posts of Obbe, Rizzo and Beany, I get the sense that their idea of God, apparently influenced greatly by the east, is closer to the neoplatonic One of the west than to Brahman. But this seems absurd to me, for how can I say that unless I have a sense of what eastern gods are? It is possible that I do have a sense of what eastern gods are, but this sense would have been constructed in the west, accompanied by all the western stereotypes and preconceptions of the west, and this simply leads back to the exact same problem.

My question, then, is this: is it possible to experience the eastern gods as they are experienced by easterners, or will westerners always be encaged by their own systems of theism?