From: "vrinparker " Delivered-To: mailing list vediculture@yahoogroups.com Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 10:27:48 -0000 Subject: [world-vedic] VEDIC DHARMA is Monotheistic VEDIC DHARMA PRELUDE: What a pity that the very country which gave the Vedas to the world is now dire need of such a work on Vedic Dharma. Vedic Dharma has remained an easy target for Western gibes. The uneducated in Bharat (so very preponderant numerically) are naturally ignorant of the Vedas. One of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted word is "Dharma". The popular English translation of the term is "religion". But the term religion is not fully expressing all that "Dharma" connotes. At best, the term "religion" may be an acceptable equivalent for the term, "sect" but not for the term, "Dharma". "Dharma" is the name given not to any set of dogmatic beliefs, but to all noble qualities that save the human soul from sinking to the depths of spiritual fallen-ness and destitution. If there is any scripture which upholds the equality of all human beings and stands for the development and all-round progress of the undivided human society, it is undoubtedly the Vedas. No doubt, the Vedas are the oldest books in man's library, infact they are as old as human society itself. THE UNIVERSAL SPIRIT The most intricate and perhaps the most absorbing question before mankind has always been this; "Is there a God?" The Vedas declare quite unequivocally that there certainly is God and that he is absolutely formless, omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient. We quote the following Mantra in support of our contention [Yajurveda 40.8] "He is every where, he is effulgent, formless, unulcered, sinew-less, pure, unpenetrated by sin, he is omniscient, the reveler of hymns, the inspirer of minds, the supreme lord and self existent. He ordains the requirement for the external subjects in the proper manner as they indeed are." (Yajurveda 40.8) "That moves everything, but that, itself moves not that is far off, that itself is near, That is within all this, that again is without (outside) all this." (Yajurveda 40.5) Vedas reject the multiplicity of gods in the clearest possible terms (Atharva Veda 13-4-16,18,20) and speak about one god, who is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient and absolutely formless, who never assumes human forms. And finally, God is neither a He nor a She. Sex is invariably a characteristic of the physical body. God being formless, there is no question of God's possessing anything like a form, figure or a body. God is neither a male nor a female. In order to impress on the human mind that god possesses all the noble qualities that human beings.