These are very strong words, but it is obvious for all those who have truly breathed the spiritual air of India that all divine images are nothing but representations and manifestation of the one Brahman, the infinite consciousness and deep reality.
The Brahman, however, is for most people an abstract and intangible concept that is difficult to grasp. It is much easier to understand deities with forms and particular qualities. Another advantage of representing the Brahman with diverse deities is that it helps counteract dogma. Rather than specifying one correct path for approaching the realization of the Brahman, India accepted all paths as long as they led to divine revelation. How’s that for practicality?
The Brahman
Let’s take a closer look now at the term Brahman, which is never to be confused with Lord Brahma, who is only one of many divine images. Brahman is called truth or reality (sat) because it cannot be broken down into smaller constituents. Therefore we can also call it deep reality. Indian thought considers things that can be reduced to smaller parts as mere appearance (which does not necessarily mean they are unreal). Underneath mere appearance is that which is not further reducible to anything — and this is what Indian texts call the Brahman. It is also described as chit, infinite consciousness — infinite both in temporal and spatial senses. Our modern scientific knowledge of physical matter — that atoms are reducible to electrons, neutrons, and protons and that those are reducible to subatomic particles, which are in turn further reducible — makes this principle even more profound.
Brahman has limitless potential. It is considered to be the state before and after the Big Bang that produced the universe. It continues to exist during the unfolding of the universe because it is touched neither by space nor by time and it gives rise to an infinite number of universes. The realization of Brahman is thought to bestow limitless ecstasy (ananda).
The Upanishads talk about the Brahman either as nirguna (without quality) or saguna (with quality). This does not mean that there are two different Brahmans but rather that individual human beings will be better able to relate to one view or the other. Neither of the views is right; the only question is, By which view can you realize the Brahman?
According to the nirguna view, the Brahman is the formless, infinite absolute. Any quality that is projected onto this formless consciousness is already part of the relative world of manifestation. No quality can be eternal, and therefore none can really describe the Brahman. This view is held by most schools of Buddhism (although they don’t call it Brahman) and by Shankara’s school of Advaita Vedanta. Islam can also be said to share this view; it forbids any depicting of the Supreme — or in fact any qualifying of the Supreme whatsoever — because it considers any human representation as a sullying of the infinite.
Strict adherents of nirguna Brahman reject beingness as a quality of Brahman. They consider the Brahman to be beyond being, beyond nonbeing, both being and nonbeing simultaneously, and none of the above. They wish to express that the Brahman is beyond any categories of the mind while also encompassing all categories the mind can think of and even those that the mind cannot think of. In other words, the followers of the Nirguna School, such as Shankara, consider being-ness as a “relative” category, while the Brahman is absolute.
For all those who ascribe to the nirguna view, the formless absolute is their ishtadevata, their meditation deity. There can be no other, because they reject the notion that the Brahman has form. This is the path of Jnana Yoga (the yoga of knowledge), which was discussed in chapter 1.
For all those who cannot or do not want to worship the formless absolute — which probably is the majority of modern people — there is the Brahman with form (saguna). If we add form to Brahman we arrive at the Supreme Being, often called Ishvara.6 The name Ishvara usually does not imply a particular deity; it is also the name that Patanjali uses for the Supreme Being. He qualifies it as little as possible.7 Nevertheless we do learn from Patanjali that the Supreme Being utters the sacred syllable Om, is a form of consciousness different from humans, is all knowing and unlimited by time, and is the author of yoga. This list gives us only a very vague idea of what the Supreme Being is and leaves open the form one should use when meditating on the Supreme.
Let’s now go deeper into the qualities in which Indian thought generally clothes the Supreme Being. In historical times Ishvara was often depicted as Trimurti, the three-faced one. A Trimurti statue will have one head with three faces looking into different directions, the three faces representing Lord Brahma, the creator; Lord Vishnu, the maintainer; and Lord Shiva, the cosmic destroyer.8 The idea of the Trimurti is to show that all three are only various faces of the one Supreme Being. Interestingly, however, Lord Brahma is not worshiped at all in India; there is only one temple related to Brahma, and even that temple is devoted to Brahma’s wife and not directly to him.
The more commonly worshiped three deities, or forms of the Supreme, are Lord Shiva, who stands for the pure consciousness within us; Lord Vishnu, representing the true self; and Devi Shakti, the Mother Goddess, who represents the entire world of creation (prakrti), our breath and life force (prana), and the ascending energy current in the central channel of the nadi system (kundalini).
These three forms of the Supreme Being are the three main meditation images. They have been broken down into many sub-images, which are so manifold that they may seem as numerous as the people on the planet. Since one’s ishtadevata (meditation deity) needs exactly to meet one’s emotional needs, there could theoretically be as many ishtadevatas as there are people.
An Intimate Relationship with the Divine
Your relationship to your ishtadevata needs to become as intimate as possible. A well-known passage of the Upanishads states, “In the core of your body is a lotus flower in which is situated a triangular shrine. In this shrine resides the true self, in which miraculously is assembled this entire vast universe with all its mountains, rivers, trees, oceans, stars and suns.”9 Since the entire universe is thought to be located inside the Supreme Being, this passage states that the Supreme Being resides in our hearts. From this point of view, the many different so-called gods are only devices that enable our individual psyches, which differ so much from one individual to another, to meditate on and identify with the one Supreme Being in our hearts. This brings us back to the purpose of mythology: when we listen to the myths and tales of ancient India and start to read the texts that describe them, we become more and more familiar and intimate with the various divine images. In due time our ishtadevata will be revealed.
Once you know your ishtadevata, you have your own private frequency through which you connect with the Supreme Being. There is no point in squabbling over which frequency — that is, which God — is better or more correct. The important point is that you find your frequency and enter into a relationship with the Supreme Being in which you find guidance and offer your service.10
There is great beauty and humility in the ishtadevata concept. Your ishtadevata is your way to access the Supreme Being, and its particularity reminds you that it is only your own limited view of the One. You cannot criticize or belittle somebody else just because you do not understand that person’s view of the Supreme Being. Again, there are as many ishtadevatas and routes to infinite consciousness as there
