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Hinduism    
The Sword of Kali – 6
Reply to "A Philosophical Critique of Radical Universalism"

Hinduism and the 72 Houris of Islam 

In the Divine Comedy, that great medieval classic which has been called a metaphor of Western culture, Dante Alighieri paints a picture of Prophet Mohammed as a sower of discord and shows him suffering for his sins in the infernal regions of hell, his body mangled and split into two from chin to crotch, and his guts, heart, lung, liver and gall bladder hanging out between his legs. While the Divine Comedy is no doubt a work of considerable merit, it still cannot be absolved of stooping to the kind of religious bigotry that has often turned Western history into a horrible saga of blood. Admittedly, the flavor of Islamic religion may not be palatable to the Christian sensibility, but that is hardly a justification for the kind of violent and morbid depiction that Dante paints of Prophet Mohammed in the Divine Comedy. There are some Christians not wanting even today who believe that Islam is a fraudulent religion, and though Dr. Morales is a Hindu and not a Christian, his words carry the same kind of innuendo when he quotes the Quran to portray that the salvific state of Islam is a kind of earthly paradise in which 72 virgins lie in wait for the pious Muslim.

The Christian’s sole aim in salvation is to be raised physically from the dead on the eschatological day of judgment, and to find herself with Jesus in heaven, who is to be found seated at the right hand of the anthropomorphic male Father/God of the Old and New Testament. Muslims aspire toward a delightfully earthy paradise in which 72 houris, or virgin youth, will be granted to them to enjoy (Qur’an, 76:19). Jains are seeking kevala, or "aloneness", in which they will enjoy an eternal existence of omniscience and omnipotence without the unwanted intrusion of a God, a Brahman or an Allah. Buddhists seek to have all the transitory elements that produce the illusion of a self melt away, and to have themselves in turn melt away into the nihilism of nirvana. To the Buddhist, Brahman also is an illusion. Each of these different types of religion has its own categorically unique concept of salvation and of the Absolute toward which they aspire. Each concept is irreconcilable with the others. To state the situation unequivocally, if a Christian, Muslim, Jain or Buddhist, upon achieving their distinct notion of salvation, were to find themselves instead united with Brahman, they would most likely be quite upset and confused indeed. And they would have a right to be! Conversely, the average yogi probably would be quite bewildered upon finding 72 virgins waiting for him upon achieving moksha, rather than realizing the eternal bliss of Brahman. One person’s vision of salvation is another person’s idea of hell.

The first thing that strikes one on reading these words is the self-contradiction that is inherent in it:

To state the situation unequivocally, if a Christian, Muslim, Jain or Buddhist, upon achieving their distinct notion of salvation, were to find themselves instead united with Brahman, they would most likely be quite upset and confused indeed.

Brahman is Sat-Chit-Ananda (Existence-Consciousness-Bliss). To be united with Brahman is to become Brahman. If a Christian, Muslim, Jain or Buddhist were to be united with Brahman, he would therefore find that he is supremely happy (Ananda). If he is upset instead, it only means that he has failed to unite with Brahman! Union with Brahman comes about only when the mind is free from the proclivities to get upset and is unperturbedly blissful. Again, if a Christian, Muslim, Jain or Buddhist were to be united with Brahman, he would find himself free from all confusion because Brahman is the All-Knowing One. If he finds himself confused instead, it only means that he has failed to unite with Brahman. Union with Brahman comes about only when all confusion is gone and the light of jnana shines in the heart. To say that a Christian, Muslim, Jain or Buddhist would get upset and confused on finding himself united with Brahman is a self-contradiction in terms. The contradiction results from equivocating on the meaning of the term ‘union with Brahman’. So much for Dr. Morales’ understanding of Vedanta! What Dr. Morales claims to be stating unequivocally turns out to be a shining example in equivocation!

The Upanishads state that Brahman presents Itself in accordance with the conception of Reality that one is fixated on. One that conceives Brahman as nothing becomes nothing (Tai.Up.VI.1). One that conceives Brahman as kevala becomes kevala. The goal of Vedanta however is to attain complete freedom from the limiting boundaries of conceptions by awakening to the Brahman that is the source, sustenance and dissolution of conceptions. Gaudapada says in his Karika on the Mandukya Upanishad that all these conceptions are of the nature of chittaspanditam, the vibration of Consciousness. Regarding the ways in which different schools conceive Reality, he says:

Anyone, to whom a teacher may show a particular object as the Reality, sees that alone. And that thing, too, protects him by becoming identified with him. That absorption leads to his self-identity with the object of devotion. (Karika.II.29)

Through these things that are really non-different from the Self, this Reality is presented as though different. He who truly knows this grasps the meaning of the Vedas without any hesitation. (Karika.II.30)

Dr. Morales finds it quite bewildering that there should be in Reality a salvific state in which 72 virgins are found waiting upon the soul in paradise. But a true Hindu does not find such a salvific state dissonant with his universalism. Dr. Morales seems to carry with him the influence of the Judeo-Christian tradition with its abhorrence for the erotic, an affliction that stems more from the excessive institutionalization of the religion by the Church rather than from true Christianity itself. To a Hindu, the erotic is not something alien; it is as natural to life as breathing is. Eros touches every man and woman, and that is the reason men and women gravitate towards each other, marry and procreate. The essential form of the erotic is Beauty, and its primary flavor is Sweetness. This erotic essence lies masked beneath the separation of the inner man and woman that is within us all. The union that the genders seek in their mortal bodies is the eternal unity of the masculine and the feminine that they see dimly refracted through the prism of duality. The unending lure of man for woman and of woman for man is a reflection of this underlying union of male and female in the mirror of flesh, and the blinding passions that it inflames can cause a man or woman to descend to the depths of hell, but when the same desire is sublimated into love for the Divine, it can become a path to salvation. The radiant sweetness of love that shines when there is single-minded devotion to the Lover is called madhura-bhava. It is the central theme of Rasa-leela, the play of Radha and Krishna enacted in Vrindavana with all its intense longings and passions converging to the rapturous union of Lover with Beloved. In Christianity, this theme appears in the form of Bridal Mysticism and it is articulated beautifully in the Dark Night of St. John. It is also the mystic theme of the Sufi in the blossoming of the Islamic heart.

In the highest flight of Vedanta, the erotic is directed completely towards the inner beatitude of Self. Everything in the world is shunned in the freedom that the heart displays towards all external things. This characteristic of the sadhaka is called vairagya. In Advaita, for example, the sadhaka displays vairagya for everything here and hereafter up to and including the world of Brahma. He is like the burnt out wick of a lamp; he is nothing in his quest to attain everything. Without such supreme vairagya, one is not fit for the path of Advaita. How many sadhakas are there in this world - even amongst the yogis - that have this kind of vairagya? But Hinduism has a place for all sadhakas, even for the one that is lacking in this kind of supreme vairagya. Such a one, in whom there is still the trace of desire, has adhikara for other forms of sadhana. He is said to follow the path of the Lower Brahman. The distinction of the Higher and Lower aspects of Brahman is mentioned in the Prasna Upanishad:

Then Satyakama the son of Sibi asked Pippalada: Sir, if among men someone should here meditate on the syllable Om until death, which world verily would he win thereby? (V.1)

He replied: O Satyakama, the syllable Om is the Supreme Brahman and also the other Brahman. Therefore he who knows It attains, with its support, the one or the other. (V.2)

The two aspects of Brahman are existentially One. The Higher is the formless aspect and the Lower is the Lord ornamented with the universe. The Higher is the goal that Advaita Vedanta seeks, but paradoxically this goal is not a goal. The moksha of Advaita is not a state to be achieved; it is the revelation of the soul’s identity with Brahman, and this revelation is not contingent on place, time, or action. It is the awakening to the Truth that always is. Therefore the path of Advaita is strictly not a path. It has been called asparsa yoga, and in the words of Gaudapada, it is as untraceable as the footprints of a bird that has flown across the sky. Advaita however admits that those who are devoted to the Lower Brahman attain to salvation in stages. Shankaracharya says that the Lower Brahman is Hiranyagarbha, the Purusha that is identified with all the beings of the world. The fourth section of the Brahma Sutras describes the path that a soul devoted to the Lower Brahman takes on its way to release (moksha). The soul is said to start along the path of flame and is then led by the deities to the worlds of the gods and finally to the world of Hiranyagarbha. The soul abides here until the dissolution of the universe whereupon it obtains final release. Commenting on the sutra, Shankara says:

The idea conveyed is that when the time for the final dissolution of the world of the Lower Brahman is imminent, the aspirants who have acquired full realization there attain thereafter, alongwith Hiranyagarbha, the ruler of the world, the supreme state of Vishnu which is absolutely pure. This kind of liberation by stages has to be admitted on the strength of the Upanishadic texts speaking of non-return etc. But we have established earlier that it is incomprehensible that the Supreme (Higher) Brahman should be reached by any process of moving forward. (BSB.IV.iii.5.10)

In the world of Hiranyagarbha, the soul enjoys the pleasures of heaven that accrues to it from the merits it has accumulated in its journeys. The arrow of karma that has left the bow must exhaust itself before the hour of release comes. There is nothing strange if even a Hindu yogi should here find himself greeted by 72 exquisitely beautiful apsaras! Shankaracharya comments on the last sutra of the Brahma Sutra as follows:

“In the world of Brahman, existing in the third order of heaven (i.e., Brahma-loka) counted from this earth, there exists two seas called Ara and Nya, where is to be found a lake full of delightful food, where exists a banian tree exuding ambrosia, where is to be seen a city of Brahman called Aparajita (the unconquered), and where stands a golden palace made by the Lord Himself (Ch.VIII.v.3). That world is also spoken of variously in the mantra and eulogistic (arthavada) portions. After reaching there, the souls do not return as others do from the world of the Moon when deprived of their enjoyment.”

The highest path of Advaita is for those that have the highest vairagya, but for others it is not unusual that jnana may arise even when subtle desires in the soul have not been fully eradicated. Such a soul attains the world of the Lower Brahman, and there it enjoys the fruits of its merits until the time of the dissolution of the world arrives. The Brahma Sutra says that the desires of a freed soul in Brahma-loka is fructified by its will alone without the need of any other agency, for in this realm the soul’s will is never infructuous. There is nothing incoherent if in this paradise the soul of an Islamic hero should be welcomed by 72 beautiful virgin youths. There is no reason why the elevated soul of a pious Muslim devotee should not have its share of pleasure in heaven. Hinduism may be uncompromising in its pursuit of truth, but its heart is large enough to accommodate the salvific states of other religions*****. Let us not confine Reality to the limited horizons of our myopic vision.    

– Continued

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