The Godly Origin of Godless Religions
By editor - 31.01 2025
There are three main godless religions in India—Buddhism, Advaita, and Jainism. They accept karma and rebirth, and advocate liberation from the cycle of birth and death, but reject the existence of God. All these religions emerged from a revolt against Vedic ritualism, which progressively came to dominate the Vedic tradition after the dawn of Kali-Yuga, around 3000 BCE. Due to their emergence out of a revolt against ritualism, these religions reject God. However, due to their revolt against a specific type of ritualism earlier prevalent in the form of Vaiṣṇavism, Shaivism, and Shaktism, they carry imprints of the previous religion even in their godless forms. In this article, I will analyze their philosophies and illustrate how even in their godless state they are essentially talking about a merger with some form of God. They are neither totally separate from the Vedic tradition, nor totally identical to it, but their historical origin out of the Vedic tradition is obscured due to revolt against the godly and reformulation as the godless.
Table of Contents [hide]
1 Godless Religions Are Not Atheism
2 Godly and Godless Religion Harmony
3 The Evolution of the Godless From the Godly
4 Three Deities—Viṣṇu, Śakti, and Śiva
5 The Detailed Description of Creation
6 Vaiṣṇavism, Shaktism, and Shaivism
7 The Separation of Godless Religions
8 Misunderstood Historical Narratives
9 The Essential Philosophy of Buddhism
10 The Essential Philosophy of Advaita
11 The Essential Philosophy of Jainism
12 No Soul vs. One Soul vs. Many Souls
13 Tolerance Within the Vedic Tradition
Godless Religions Are Not Atheism
One of the surprising features of the three godless religions is that each of their founders is recognized as a divine personality in the Vedic tradition—Ṛṣabhadeva (the founder of Jainism) and Buddha (the founder of Buddhism) are regarded as forms of Lord Viṣṇu and Śaṅkarācārya (the founder of Advaita) is regarded as a form of Lord Śiva. Due to the acceptance of their main preceptors, they were accorded great respect by the Vedic tradition. And yet, Jainism and Buddhism have been rejected for a really long time as Nāstika (na = not, asti = real, hence unreal or false). Likewise, Vaiṣṇava Acharyas called Advaita chadma-bauddha or deceptively Buddhist because of its rejection of the forms of God. The acceptance of the founders and the rejection of philosophy creates enormous confusion, whose resolution has been that they are all dharmic religions in the sense that they accept guna, karma, dharma, and rebirth, describe the central problem of life as bondage, and the ultimate goal of religion as release.
Since these are all godless religions, therefore, Nāstika is often incorrectly translated as atheistic, which reminds people of what this word means in Abrahamic religions—it means materialism and immorality, as the existence of a non-material self and moral conduct are tied to the existence of God in these religions. The fact is that Buddhism, Advaita, and Jainism are neither materialism nor immorality. They always emphasize moral conduct in life, describe immorality as leading to greater bondage, and define the goal of religion as transcendence from bondage, and hence from immorality and the material world. Hence, I prefer using the term godless religion rather than atheism with regard to these religions.
Even this nomenclature isn’t entirely accurate because obscured by their philosophical godlessness is the worship of a deity—of Śiva in Advaita, of Viṣṇu in Buddhism, and of Śakti in Jainism—which I will illustrate at length in this article. Hence, they cannot be called completely godless either. The reason I use this term is that they consider Śaṅkarācārya, Buddha, and Ṛṣabhadeva great gurus rather than God. The guru tells the followers about an ultimate state of existence, not a Supreme Person. The follower of the guru tries to become just like the guru. Even as he might worship the guru in the initial stages of practice, his worship is a means to an end, not an end. After a person attains liberation, the guru is not worshipped. Thus, the guru is emulated in the journey toward liberation, but forgotten after attaining liberation.
The godlessness of Advaita, Buddhism, and Jainism doesn’t mean the complete cessation of worship, the end of a disciplic tradition, or disregard for earlier gurus to create one’s own philosophy. There is a strong tradition, there is worship, there are great gurus and their writings, and yet, they are not God. Each of these traditions also has a strong practice to attain liberation, so they are not merely talking philosophy but trying to realize the state described in philosophy. Their “philosophy” is not Western philosophy, i.e., individual speculations without a realization and without a method for gaining such realization. When they talk about their philosophy, they prescribe a method to attain that experiential state. Thereby, these are also not “religions” in the Abrahamic sense—i.e., beliefs that cannot be confirmed right now. A term like godless religion accurately describes that they are neither religion, nor philosophy, nor atheism.
Godly and Godless Religion Harmony
The Jain and Buddhist cosmology is hierarchical and similar to the Vedic cosmology. In fact, certain parts of the cosmos, such as Jambudvīpa, Meru Mountain, and Bhārata-Varṣa, are named identical to the Vedic tradition. The Advaita tradition also accepts the material part of the Vedic cosmology. All of them agree with the Vedic tradition with regard to a hierarchy of living entities within the material realm.
Owing to similarities in their approach toward life (dharma, guna, karma, and rebirth), their approach toward transcendence (current life is bondage and we seek liberation), the acceptance of a hierarchical cosmos, and their systematic approach to religion (philosophies, practices, teachers, writings, deities, and worships), all these systems have existed in harmony in India with the Vedic tradition, despite the Vedic tradition calling them Nāstika or chadma-bauddha. These words are not considered insults but technical descriptions of their positions, in contrast to the Vedic tradition. They have engaged in debates with each other about the nature of reality, but those debates did not result in hatred or violence.
From a legal standpoint of the modern Indian constitution, Buddhism, Advaita, and Jainism are parts of Hinduism since the word “Hindu” just means people who lived in a land east of the river Sindhu, had evolved natively in India, and weren’t invaders into India, which includes the followers of Buddhism, Advaita, and Jainism. Legally speaking, Hinduism isn’t a religion; it is a geographical term collectively referring to the natives of India prior to the Abrahamic invasions. This is why so many Indians say at present that one can even be an atheist and yet be Hindu. While this is not an accurate statement about the Vedic tradition, it is the legal definition of “Hinduism”, as something that includes godless religions. Factually, if India hadn’t been invaded, “Hinduism” would not exist, nor would godless religions be included within it. We would just be talking about the Vedic tradition, Buddhism, Advaita, Jainism, etc.
The Evolution of the Godless From the Godly
Everything I have said thus far is well-known, although it may not be known by everyone. What I’m going to say next is unknown—i.e., that Buddhism, Advaita, and Jainism evolved out of three Vedic traditions in ancient India, called Vaiṣṇavism, Shaivism, and Shaktism which is why they have been connected to the Vedic tradition, although, through gradual opposition, evolution, and misunderstanding, they also transformed into godless religions. The differences between them are the result of their evolution out of three distinct traditions—i.e., Vaiṣṇavism, Shaivism, and Shaktism—and their godlessness is the result of their opposition, evolution, and misunderstanding in which the guru became a substitute for God.
In the Vedic tradition, God is always a guru, but a guru is not always God. And yet, the guru is considered the representative of God in the world and worshipped as good as God, although not equated to God. Due to this fuzziness between God and guru in the Vedic tradition, the initial claim that God is guru had easy acceptance but the subsequent claim that guru is God had no acceptance. Since godless religions made this transition from God is guru to guru is God, they began calling successive gurus Śaṅkarācārya (in the case of Advaita), Buddha (in the case of Buddhism), and Ṛṣabhadeva or Tīrthaṅkara (in the case of Jainism).
The difference between the Vedic tradition and Buddhism, Advaita, or Jainism is based on this non-binary condition—God is a guru but a guru is not God. Since godless religions replace God with a guru, the Vedic tradition calls them Nāstika or chadma-bauddha and the difference seems great. And yet, if we understand Vaiṣṇavism, Shaivism, and Shaktism we can understand why equating guru to God is a misunderstanding and misinterpretation, obtained through gradual evolution, not originally present. This is what I will try to do in this article—describe how three godless religions came out of three godly Vedic traditions through the same type of misunderstanding in which the guru seems to replace God.
Three Deities—Viṣṇu, Śakti, and Śiva
Before we get into the evolution of Buddhism, Advaita, and Jainism out of the Vedic tradition, we have to understand the three important deities within the Vedic tradition—called Viṣṇu, Śiva, and Śakti—and how they are not as disparate or disconnected as they are often made out to be. This requires a good understanding of the material world, called bondage, into which an eternal ātmā or soul falls.
The ātmā is an eternal part of Viṣṇu, and in service of Viṣṇu, the ātmā remains eternally blissful. But sometimes, the ātmā becomes envious of Viṣṇu and wants to become the master instead of the servant. The desire to serve Viṣṇu is love and the desire to become a master is lust. This lust is called Māyā and personified as Śakti. Just as the ātmā is a part of Viṣṇu, similarly, when it develops lust, it becomes a part of Māyā or Śakti.
Śakti Herself is divine but She seeks Śiva, who is aloof. The desire for the aloof is material creation—the desire tries to catch the aloof and the aloof tries to escape the desire. The repeated catching by the desire and the escape by the aloof is described as sexual intercourse.
The material world is objectified because it is produced from the aloof self-absorbed person. All parts of the aloof and self-absorbed appear to be aloof and self-absorbed. We can illustrate this by the example of a yogi deeply absorbed in meditation. To the outsider, he looks dead and inert. Some yogis in the past did such great austerities that their body was eaten up by ants as if they were dead. Some yogis are so self-absorbed that they appear to be asleep. Śiva is that self-absorbed inert persona. Those who have no idea about yoga call this world things-in-themselves. Materialism interprets aloofness as separation and self-absorption as inertness. In contrast, minds and senses are subjectified because they desire the aloof and separated world. Thus, the dichotomy of the subjective and the objective is created. This subject-object duality is false; there are two persons—one aloof and the other desiring the aloof. The aloof looks inert to the ignorant but is in fact a self-absorbed person. The desire looks active because it seeks the aloof.
The feminine Śakti is desire and the masculine aloof is Śiva. Both are forms, not formless. Matter is objectified in science and religion at present because people haven’t seen great yogis while they have seen people pursuing material things. So, they think that desire is life and desireless is dead. The thing that seems to have no desire or feels no pain is not dead. It is in deep sleep or self-absorption. Even a stone is alive. In the Vedic tradition life is both desire and desireless, just different kinds of life.
Our material existence is parts of Śakti and Śiva—the feminine desire is senses and the masculine aloof is sense objects. The senses try to grab the sense objects, and the sense objects try to escape the senses. The temporary union between the senses and the sense objects is sexual intercourse. It is not limited to genitals. Rather, every part of our experience is the result of senses uniting and separating with the sense objects. The senses are the “subjective” reality and the sense objects are the “objective” reality. Śakti is subjective desire and Śiva is objective world. The objective world is not some impersonal objects (as in modern science). The objective world is a person Śiva desired by a person Śakti.
The soul under the grip of desire chases sense objects for its pleasure. While the soul is a part of Viṣṇu, when its consciousness is covered by desire (Śakti), it is also propelled toward the desire’s objects (Śiva). And thus, a part of Viṣṇu becomes a part of Śakti (senses) and Śiva (sense objects), which is called bondage. Extrication from bondage—called liberation—is the soul remembering its parthood of Viṣṇu. To describe bondage, we need two personas—Śiva and Śakti. To describe liberation, we need one persona—Viṣṇu. A collective and comprehensive description of bondage and liberation requires Viṣṇu, Śiva, and Śakti. Thus, there have always been three traditions—Vaiṣṇavism, Shaivism, and Shaktism—for those who want to understand the material world, how the soul is bound in this world, and how it can be liberated.
The Detailed Description of Creation
In the Vedic texts, the material world is described as the dream of Nārāyaṇa—the primordial form of Viṣṇu for the material creation—who dreams up the material creation. A dreamer always sees himself within the dream. That dreamt self-image of Nārāyaṇa is called Kāraṇodakaśāyī Viṣṇu. As the dreamt self-image of the dreamer Nārāyaṇa, Kāraṇodakaśāyī Viṣṇu embodies all ātmā that have become averse to Him, although they are still His eternal parts. Nārāyaṇa also dreams of Śakti and Śiva as the creators of the universe.
Within the dream, Kāraṇodakaśāyī Viṣṇu glances at Śakti and the soul’s consciousness enters Śakti, which is described as the father (Kāraṇodakaśāyī Viṣṇu) impregnating the mother (Śakti). This impregnation of the soul into Śakti is the soul being covered by material desire. As Śakti seeks an aloof Śiva, the soul’s desire is directed toward Śiva but it thinks of Śiva as sense objects. Thereafter, the desire (Śakti) for the aloof (Śiva) results in a sexual creation as the repeated union and separation of senses and sense objects. Kāraṇodakaśāyī Viṣṇu is the father of the soul and yet Śiva is the actual husband of the mother!
सर्वमङ्गलमाङ्गल्ये शिवे सर्वार्थसाधिके ।
शरण्ये त्र्यम्बके गौरि नारायणि नमोऽस्तु ते ॥
sarvamaṅgalamāṅgalye śive sarvārthasādhike ।
śaraṇye tryambake gauri nārāyaṇi namo’stu te ॥
“One who is all the auspiciousness in all the auspicious, one who fulfills the purposes of Śiva, Gauri in whom the three mothers are sheltered, I offer my obeisances to Nārāyaṇi.“
This beautiful verse, often sung in many Vedic rites even today, describes Śakti in three ways—(a) Gauri as the shelter of three mothers, (b) the consort of Śiva who fulfills all His purposes, and (c) the daughter of Nārāyaṇa. In a single verse, Viṣṇu, Śiva, and Śakti are described, so any separation between these three personas is imaginary. Their interplay is not understood unless we draw a distinction between the ātmā (part of Viṣṇu), the desires in senses (part of Śakti), the sense objects (parts of Śiva), and how the awareness of the ātmā is injected into desires and senses by the glance of Kāraṇodakaśāyī Viṣṇu.
Śiva is also called Saṅkarṣaṇa because He is the object of attraction for Śakti, and then the attraction for the ātmā in the material world. The realm of desire—Śakti—into which Kāraṇodakaśāyī Viṣṇu glances is also described as a Causal Ocean from which numerous universes emerge quite like fertilized eggs. In Vaiṣṇava descriptions, the role of Śiva and Śakti is less apparent because Saṅkarṣaṇa is the cosmic snake on which Kāraṇodakaśāyī Viṣṇu sleeps and that cosmic snake, in turn, lies within the Causal Ocean. Thus, Viṣṇu, Śiva, and Śakti are described in Vaiṣṇava texts as Viṣṇu sleeping on a snake in an ocean.
Each universe—one fertilized egg—is called Brahmāņda into which another form of Viṣṇu called Garbhodakaśāyi Viṣṇu appears as the Cosmic Soul, from whom appears Brahma, from whom appear the Sages, Deva, Asura, and humans, and accompanying them is a third form of Viṣṇu called Kṣīrodakaśāyī Viṣṇu. This entire process is succinctly summarized in the Pāñcarātra texts as the five forms of Viṣṇu—Nārāyaṇa, Vāsudeva (Kāraṇodakaśāyī), Saṅkarṣaṇa (Śiva), Pradyumna (Garbhodakaśāyi), and Aniruddha (Kṣīrodakaśāyī). However, this is not the only description; there are similar descriptions in the Shaiva and Shakta texts where the above five forms of Viṣṇu are replaced by the five forms of Śiva and Śakti.
Thus, hard and fast distinctions between Vaiṣṇavism, Shaivism, and Shaktism have never existed in the Vedic texts. All these distinctions are recent creations of people who did not read the other texts and assumed that if there were different books and different names, then they must be different personas. They should ponder the fact that even Viṣṇu is called by many names—the above five being examples. The names are different because their qualities and activities are different. The same person can exhibit different qualities and activities without being a different person. In the context of Viṣṇu, Śiva, and Śakti too we must understand the qualities and activities before we conclude that they are different.
Vaiṣṇavism, Shaktism, and Shaivism
The different descriptions across Vedic texts are not contradictory because the soul is at once three kinds of entities—(a) it is a part of Viṣṇu, (b) it is covered by desire and hence a part of Śakti, and (c) it wants to be the desired object, the attractor called Saṅkarṣaṇa, or the object of desire called Śiva. The three different accounts make the soul masculine (Śiva), feminine (Śakti), and neither feminine nor masculine (Viṣṇu). The soul’s position in the material world is precarious because it wants to be the desired object, it desires objects other than itself, and it is neither the object of desire nor the desire for these objects.
This precarious position of the soul sets up the stage for the three traditions called Vaiṣṇavism, Shaktism, and Shaivism. They are not factually isms—i.e., three separate religions or ideologies as often conjured—but three ways in which the soul can escape the material bondage or enjoy the material world.
The soul can worship Śiva to become the object of attraction like Śiva or become aloof like Śiva because Śiva is both aloof and the object of attraction precisely because He is aloof.
The soul can worship Śakti to fulfill its desires or become free of these desires because Śakti is both a desire for Śiva and bondage in the material world precisely due to these desires.
The soul can worship Viṣṇu to be liberated from the material world or serve Viṣṇu in the material world because Viṣṇu is both transcendent to the material world and the object of worship.
Owing to these two forms of worship in Vaiṣṇavism, Shaktism, and Shaivism, each of these is divided into two forms of practices and paths that are called pravṛtti (engagement) and nivṛtti (detachment).
The pravṛtti path in Shaivism is meant for the soul to become the desired object in the material world and the nivṛtti path is meant to attain liberation from trying to be the desired object.
The pravṛtti path in Shaktism is meant for the soul to fulfill its material desires in the material world and the nivṛtti path is meant to attain freedom from trying to fulfill material desires.
The pravṛtti path in Vaiṣṇavism is meant for the soul to serve Viṣṇu in this world and the nivṛtti path is meant for liberation from this world and service to Viṣṇu in a transcendent world.
The pravṛtti in Shaivism and Shaktism extends the soul’s bondage in the world, while nivṛtti ends that bondage. However, both pravṛtti and nivṛtti in Vaiṣṇavism are methods of transcendence—even while living in this world. Vaiṣṇavism is thus dually described as mukti (liberation) and bhakti (serving). In earlier traditions of Vaiṣṇavism, liberation was emphasized, but in later traditions, serving was emphasized. In Gaudīya Vaiṣṇavism, the devotees of devotees of Viṣṇu even renounce the idea of mukti for bhakti.
Thus, Vaiṣṇavism has been the preferred and dominant tradition within the Vedic system because the risks of falling back into materialism are very low, if one desires transcendence. The dominant practice of Shaivism and Shaktism has been to become the object of desire and to fulfill one’s desires, although even these could be followed for liberation. The difference is that if Shaivism and Shaktism are followed for liberation, one ends up in a state where he doesn’t want to be the object of desire and doesn’t want to fulfill the desire for other objects, respectively. This state—in which the soul is free from desires—is called nirvikāra mukti or formless liberation because the absence of desire means the absence of personality. Likewise, even in Vaiṣṇavism, one can worship Viṣṇu to attain liberation from the material world into nirvikāra mukti.
These formless states are not the only states in Vaiṣṇavism, Shaktism, and Shaivism because Viṣṇu, Śiva, and Śakti also have their places of residence in which the devotees of Viṣṇu serve Viṣṇu, the devotees of Śiva serve Śiva, and the devotees of Śakti serve Śakti. However, the ātmā is not an eternal part of Śiva or Śakti; the ātmā is, however, an eternal part of Viṣṇu. If the ātmā was an eternal part of Śiva or Śakti, then material existence would also be natural and eternal for the ātmā. The rejection of material life as an eternal state is acceptance that the ātmā is an eternal part of Viṣṇu. Hence, residence in the places of Śiva or Śakti can be long but not eternal. Eventually, the ātmā expects to become an object of desire like Śiva and falls into the material realm. Or, the ātmā develops a desire for objects and expects Śakti to fulfill its desires and falls into the material realm. The ātmā can also forget Viṣṇu and fall into the material realm. However, because the ātmā is a part of Viṣṇu, its attraction to Viṣṇu is eternally natural, rather than for Śiva or Śakti.
Thus, despite all traditions being capable of yielding formless liberation, despite the fact that there are long-lived residences even in the places of Śiva or Śakti, those aspiring for permanent transcendence aspire for Viṣṇu bhakti. The latter is preferred but the former is not rejected. Both pravṛtti and nivṛtti are practiced in each of the three traditions, and yet, their goals and destinations are quite different. All this complexity has been unfathomable for the outsiders; which is why they were simplified into isms.
The Separation of Godless Religions
This background is important to understand that formless liberation has always been a possibility in the Vedic tradition—(a) prioritized relative to material enjoyment, and (b) deprioritized relative to personal service to Viṣṇu, Śiva, or Śakti. As long as the personal service is the highest spiritual state, and as long as personal service to Viṣṇu is higher than that to Śiva or Śakti, a clear hierarchy of spiritual attainments is available—(a) material enjoyment is lowest, (b) formless salvation is next higher, (c) personal service to Śiva or Śakti is even higher, and (d) personal service to Viṣṇu is highest. When this hierarchy is available, there is no coercion on the spiritual path, and yet, the highest path is accepted without coercion.
Deviation away from this hierarchy appeared in India after (a) the decline of the worship of Viṣṇu, (b) the decline in the worship of Śiva and Śakti for attaining personal service and formless salvation, and (c) the rise in all kinds of worship—including those of Devas—for material enjoyment. This decline is presently called Vedic ritualism. The prominence of ritualism is a feature of Kali-Yuga. It was not prominent earlier as higher forms of religious practices prevailed. The rise of ritualism led to a decline in philosophy and meditation, as religion turned away from transcendence into material enjoyment. All forms of worship, including Viṣṇu, Śiva, and Śakti, became paths to material enjoyment rather than transcendence.
The four Vedas prescribe these rituals in which Devas are prioritized, Viṣṇu, Śiva, and Śakti are secondary although included, however, the ultimate purpose is material enjoyment. The Tantra texts describe personal service to Viṣṇu, Śiva, and Śakti. The Purāṇa discuss the pastimes of Viṣṇu, Śiva, or Śakti. The Itihāsa discuss the pastimes of Viṣṇu combined with the life stories of His perfect or aspiring devotees. Upaniṣad discusses the summary nature of reality. Darśana are high philosophy texts. The study of Tantra, Purāṇa, Itihāsa, Upaniṣad, and Darśana teaches transcendence. However, as Vedic ritualism gained prominence, the four Vedas became the most important texts while Tantra, Purāṇa, Upaniṣad, Itihāsa, and Darśana declined.
The rise of ritualism and the decline of other parts of the Vedic tradition are the main reasons for the rise of godless religions. The godless religions reject ritualism and demand the immediately next higher level of transcendence—formless liberation. As there are three prominent types of ritualism—i.e., Vaiṣṇavism, Shaivism, and Shaktism—the demand for transcendence takes different forms to replace their respective rituals with a different kind of transcendence closely modeled after a philosophical substrate underlying the ritualistic practices and yet opposed to the forms of divinity to ensure that (a) the rituals end, and (b) the ritualists move away into higher realizations. The end of rituals and the advocacy of liberation looks like a new religion but it is formed as a result of revolt against the ritualism of the previous religion.
And thus, Buddhism, Advaita, and Jainism are both old and new religions. They are new because they arise as a result of a revolt against ritualism within Vaiṣṇavism, Shaivism, and Shaktism, which was meant for material enjoyment rather than transcendence. They are old since they carry the older substrate of the philosophies of Vaiṣṇavism, Shaivism, and Shaktism. We will shortly discuss this new-old dichotomy to illustrate how the new is quite like the old and yet is not the old.
Misunderstood Historical Narratives
Before that, let’s quickly understand the result of the new religions—the threat perception from the new replacing the old led to the revival of the old, but with a reformed transcendental purpose. After that, the reformed religions began critiquing the godless religions as deviant and false because they had thrown out the baby (the transcendent deities) along with the bathwater (materialistic rituals). When a deity can be worshipped for both material and spiritual purposes, we don’t reject the deity just because we were worshipping him or her for the wrong reasons; we replace the wrong reasons with the right ones.
Indian religious history involves religious decline, the rise of new religions mimicking older ones, replacing rituals with transcendence, which led to reformation and revival, and the reformed and revived religions critique godless religions for their haste in creating new religions rather than correcting old ones.
At present, the main historical narrative about the Vedic tradition is that the four Vedas are the “original” Veda. The Upaniṣad come later, the Purāṇa and Tantra come even later, and Darśana is very late. This is the inversion of the importance and order of Vedic texts but it is accepted as the default state because when ritualism rose, the study of Darśana declined first and was revived last, the study of Upaniṣad declined second, and was revived second last, and the study of Purāṇa, Tantra, and Itihāsa declined third and was revived third last. There is a successive decline of texts from more important to less important and then their resurgence but the order after the resurgence is inverse to the order before the decline.
This inverted order mimics the Greek historical timeline in which initially Greek pagans were ritualistic, then they started doing philosophy, then the civilization died and was replaced by Abrahamic religions, after which came modern science. Western historians have been eager to model Vedic history after Greek history to forecast its replacement by monotheism and modern science. In this modeling, anything closer to Greek paganism is inferior and anything closer to Greek philosophy is superior. The four Vedas are closer to Greek pagans and Darśana is closer to Greek philosophy so philosophy must evolve out of rituals. Factually, the Vedic tradition doesn’t prioritize the four Vedas. If we read Mahābhārata or Rāmāyana, we don’t see great importance assigned to rituals for material prosperity. There is either a fine balance among many practices, or philosophy and meditation are preferred over rituals. Of course, Greeks and Romans prioritized rituals before philosophy. Hence, assigning a similar prioritization to the Vedic tradition is a thinly veiled attempt to model the Vedic tradition as Greco-Roman paganism.
Indian history is quite different—there was a perfect understanding of religion at the dawn of Kali-Yuga, then ritualism replaced everything else, then revolt against this ritualism led to prioritizing formless liberation over material enjoyment, and then the rising influence of these competitors talking about formless liberation led to the revival of the previously ignored, neglected, or marginalized systems where the worship of the divine forms was given higher priority over the pursuit of formless liberation.
The rise of religions talking about formless liberation—Buddhism, Advaita, and Jainism—constitutes the revolt against the erstwhile ritualism, subsequently superseded by the revival of ignored traditions. The hallmark of this revival is a surge of new commentaries to counter the objections of rebelling religions. If there was no ritualism, there would be no revolt, no attempt to revive, no surge of commentaries.
According to modern historians, the so-called “post-Vedic texts”—Purāṇa, Tantra, Darśana, Upaniṣad, and Itihāsa—are written after Buddhism and Jainism, although none of them mentions either. Then commentaries on these texts address objections from Jainism and Buddhism, when the fact is that if the original texts had come after Buddhism and Jainism, they should have addressed their objections at the time of the original writing. Why are original texts silent on Buddhism and Jainism but commentaries address their objections? The answer is that Buddhism and Jainism came after the Vedic texts and the late surge in commentaries addressing their objections against the Vedic tradition indicates a revival after a decline. This revival occurred mostly in Vaiṣṇavism, which disregarded Shaktism and Shaivism, and thus we see an apparent schism between these three. But if we understand fully, we can see there are no schisms.
In one sense, the Vedic tradition is grateful to the rebelling godless religions—they forced the revival of the Vedic tradition and transitioned it away from material enjoyment rituals toward transcendence. In another sense, the Vedic tradition critiques these godless religions as being false and deviant. To most people, this combination of gratitude and critique is incomprehensible—if we are grateful, then we should not criticize, but if we criticize, then we are not grateful—because they don’t understand that the Vedic tradition went to sleep and was awakened from its slumber by the critique of godless religions. We are grateful that we were woken up from our slumber and we are critiquing as a result of being woken up. We don’t buy the linear history conjured in the West—based on their sequence of paganism, philosophy, monotheism, and science—because Indian history involves going to sleep and then waking up.
Now that we understand the big picture of the decline of the Vedic tradition, the rise of godless religions, then the Vedic tradition being woken up by the rise of godless religions, to reject ritualism and revive transcendence, to then write commentaries to respond to the claims of godless religions, we can discuss how three godless religions arose from three Vedic traditions—Vaiṣṇavism, Shaivism, and Shaktism. This will give us a deep insight into godless religions, as neither identical to the Vedic tradition, nor totally separate from it, carrying imprints of the previous tradition, but also obscuring it in many ways.
The Essential Philosophy of Buddhism
Buddhism begins by stating that the main problem of life is suffering, which arises due to desire, which is unfulfilled because everything is impermanent, and yet, we continue to suffer because we think there is something permanent to be attained, which is ignorance. Suffering ends if we understand that there is nothing permanent, that the world is just appearance, co-created with the observer, which produces desire in us and makes us chase the world to produce suffering. Ignorance of the nature of reality and the desire for something that doesn’t truly exist causes suffering and their end also ends suffering.
To see the problem here, we have to understand the correct and incorrect claims as per the Vedic tradition. The world we see is not reality; it is produced from our senses, like a dream. During waking, experience is created through an interaction with the world, like a stick hitting a drum produces a sound. Our experience is the sound, it is correlated to the stick but does not correspond to it, nor is the stick the only cause of the sound—as the drum could vibrate on its own, and the sound depends not just on the stick but also on the drum.
If we could control the dream—i.e., no external world was involved—there would be no suffering. The mere existence of suffering tells us that we are not fully in control of our experience, hence something other than us exists that controls and causes our experience—suffering proves there is reality. But that reality need not be permanent if it is understood as potentials rather than objects. A person is a collection of infinite potentials; we don’t always see the person in the same way. That doesn’t mean the person doesn’t exist. It just means that impermanence is caused by seeing a different potential. Thus, existence is consistent with impermanence if reality is a person. They are inconsistent if reality is objects.
In every dream, an ego and a world are co-created; there is no ego without the world; to be a father, there must be a child, to be a husband there must be a wife, to be a seer there must be a seen. This ego and the world are generally impermanent; hence, they can be called false if our idea of reality is material objectivity. However, that claim doesn’t apply if the world is the potentiality within a person. Moreover, there is also an ego and a world outside the dream, to explain suffering—i.e., why suffering exists not just accepting the fact that it exists. Buddhism doesn’t go into why suffering exists; it axiomatizes suffering, attributes it to the co-creation of ego and the world, both of which are impermanent, and proposes the dissolution of both to enter deep sleep. Can we enter deep sleep? Sure, we can. So, the Buddhist claim is not false. In deep sleep, there is no self and no world, which is called emptiness but it is not a cognitive void in the sense of an awake person looking into empty space; emptiness is the non-existence of the seer, seen, and seeing.
This state of deep sleep is the soul’s state within Nārāyaṇa; from this state the soul is put into dreaming through the glance of Kāraṇodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, injected into Śakti, where an ego and a world are co-created, although there is a reality outside this dream which is Śakti desiring Śiva. Thus, there is a world inside the realm of desire or senses—the phenomenal world—and there is a world outside the realm of desire or senses, i.e., the real world. Even this real world is a dream of Nārāyaṇa, and yet it exists as eternal potentials that are hidden and revealed to create impermanence, so eternity and temporarity are true at once.
When Buddhists talk about a co-created ego and world, they are talking about the dream within Śakti. When they talk about liberation from this dream, they encourage returning to the deep sleep state in Nārāyaṇa. However, the arguments they use to get to these conclusions are false because: (a) there is an external reality without which we could not explain suffering, (b) when there is an external reality, the self must also be real, (c) now the temporality of experience has to be explained by the self seeing different aspects or parts of reality, (d) which would lead us to the question of eternal experience. Buddhists discard this line of thinking, and yet, their conclusion of deep sleep is not false either.
Millions of reclining Buddha images depict Him sleeping on a snake exactly like Nārāyaṇa in the Vedic tradition. Some of them depict the material world like a tree, with Meru Mountain at the center, grown from a lotus, which is the place of Garbhodakaśāyi Visnu in the Vedic tradition (from Whose navel a lotus grows upon which Brahma is born, who creates the material world). When Buddhists worship these images, they are worshipping Nārāyaṇa. The difference with the Vedic tradition is that Buddhists want to merge into Nārāyaṇa while the devotees of Nārāyaṇa offer prayers from outside Nārāyaṇa.
The talk of emptiness and void, the claims about the absence of an eternal self, and the denial of God and the world, all hide and obscure their true origins in the Vedic tradition where the soul comes from Nārāyaṇa but because it is in the deep sleep state in Nārāyaṇa, it remains unaware of everything. People who study Buddhism but don’t know the Vedic tradition think that Buddhism is atheistic, although they cannot reconcile this with the Vedic description of Buddha as one of the incarnations of Viṣṇu. Neither can they explain the particularity of Buddha’s popular depictions mirroring Nārāyaṇa’s pose.
Buddhism is an adverse reaction to Vedic ritualism, which was formerly practiced by Brahmanas. The rejection of Brahmanical ritualism gradually became the rejection of Brahmanas themselves, which slowly became aversion to the so-called “caste system” in which Brahmanas are accorded the highest status, which was then enshrined in India as lower-caste reservations—i.e., affirmative action—, then given a class conflict narrative by the Marxists, which has been continuously exploited by all political agencies. If we can peel off these layers of delusion one after another, we can understand that Buddha is Nārāyaṇa, but instead of becoming the devotees of Nārāyaṇa, Buddhists want to become Buddha, i.e., merge into Nārāyaṇa.
Brahmanas aren’t just ritualists; they are also meditators and philosophers. They had prioritized rituals once but that wasn’t always the case in the past, nor is it the case today. Likewise, the rituals done for Viṣṇu, Śiva, and Śakti can transcend the material world and take a person toward transcendence. All such rituals can’t be equated to those being performed for wellbeing in this world. The adversity against Brahmanas is false at so many levels, and yet, there is also the truth of a state of deep sleep, which means opposition to rituals isn’t completely false.
The Essential Philosophy of Advaita
Advaita divides existence into two categories—Brahman and Māyā—the former is reality and the latter is appearance. It takes a trajectory similar to that of Buddhism in the sense that the main problem of life is suffering and the purpose of life is getting out of suffering. It also takes the same approach as Buddhism in saying that the ego and the world are part of Māyā, although, unlike Buddhism, it doesn’t talk about co-creation. It then takes the bold step of equating the self to reality and the appearance to just a temporary phenomenon. As long as the self is entangled in the phenomena, it is suffering. However, if the self gets out of the phenomena—i.e., Brahman getting out of Māyā—then suffering ends.
Every realist philosophy talks about three things—seer, seen, and seeing. The seeing is the phenomena, the seen is the reality behind the phenomena, and the seer is in front of the phenomena. Thereby, realist philosophies don’t equate the seer to the seen; they accept that there is a seen distinct from the seer because if these two were merged then the seer must create its phenomena and all such self-created phenomena must be happy—for the self to be happy—and the problem of suffering doesn’t arise. The existence of suffering requires a distinction between a seer and seen to say that the self is coerced into suffering because of something other than itself. Without this distinction, there is no suffering.
The bold step in Advaita—equating the seer to the seen—is false because it leads to the conclusion that the seer created its phenomena and then started suffering in it. It is simply untenable because nobody wants to suffer and yet they are said to be creating their own suffering. Advaita compares the worldly experience to a spider caught in a web of its own creation—which is a false analogy because the spider is never caught in its web. Instead, insects are caught in the spider’s web, which the spider had created to trap them. This fundamental problem in Advaita is never resolved because there are three, rather than two, categories—Śakti is the phenomena created from desire, Śiva is the reality being seen, and the self is projected into this phenomenon by the glance of Viṣṇu, as the self willed to desire and be desired.
Śiva is the self-absorbed, aloof, and detached reality and Śakti is the desire, attraction, and love for Him. Through Her desire, attraction, and love, Śakti attracts Śiva, and thus Śiva “falls” into the trap of Śakti. Śiva is the vagabond and Śakti is the domesticator. Through Her desire, attraction, and love for the vagabond, Śakti domesticates Śiva. They have a conjugal relationship from which the world is created. However, this domestication is not eternal, which is why the world is temporary. As Śiva tries to escape domestication, Śakti catches Him again. This cycle of entrapment, escape, and recapture is called sex. Advaita describes this process of Śiva falling into the allurement of Śakti as the soul falling into Māyā, which is false because the soul fell into Māyā of its own volition whereas Śiva was trapped by Śakti.
Śaṅkarācārya is an incarnation of Śiva and He appeared to write about His entrapment at the hands of Māyā. He called Himself Brahman—Aham Brahmāsmi—and His eternal wife, consort, and lover as the entrapment of Māyā. Then He talked about His escape from entrapment and renunciation to regain His self-absorbed, aloof, and detached state. Of course, the ordinary living entities assumed that He was talking about them—i.e., that they were Brahman who had been trapped by Māyā. This is a type of presumptuous self-service because the soul is not so attractive as Śiva as to attract Śakti to itself. This requires an understanding of the masculine and feminine in material and spiritual realms, which I will turn to now.
The divine masculine is the attractor or the center of attraction. The divine feminine is attracted to this attractor. However, there are two kinds of attractions—(a) the feminine Māyā wants to control the masculine Brahman, and (b) the feminine Māyā wants to love the masculine Brahman. When Māyā wants to control, the attractor wants to escape that control. When Māyā wants to love, the attractor comes under the control of Māyā. This is seen even in this world—(a) if a woman loves a man, he becomes a henpecked husband and comes under her control, and (b) if a woman tries to control a man, he tries to escape her control and regain his independence. The woman who wants to control a man is a type of duality—she shows she is attracted to a man, and traps a man by that attraction, but her eventual goal is to control the man, which makes a man want to escape that control. The woman who wants to love a man is a type of non-duality—she shows she is attracted to a man, and traps a man by that attraction, but her eventual goal is to love the man, which makes a man want to stay with her.
Thus, there are two kinds of Māyā—called Yoga-Māyā and Maha-Māyā—the former is love and the latter is control. Brahman and Māyā in the material world are Śiva and Śakti. Śakti in the material world is power and control because She tries to dominate Śiva, which makes Him want to escape, and the cycle of attraction and escape is sex. However, Śakti in the spiritual world is love and service because She tries to please Viṣṇu, which makes Him want to stay, and that relationship is devoid of sex. Thus, control is temporary and love is eternal.
The soul is also Māyā in relation to Brahman. However, it can take either a loving or a controlling nature. If the soul tries to control Brahman, He escapes, which is the soul’s misery. If the soul tries to love Brahman, He comes under its control, which is bliss. The Advaita idea that the soul is Brahman is false, although troubled by worldly miseries, the soul can escape the world just like Śiva. However, if the soul doesn’t become a lover of Viṣṇu, it falls again into the desire to control and comes under the influence of Maha-Māyā.
The confusion of Advaita can thus be understood in many ways—(a) there are three categories of seer, seen, and seeing, (b) they are called soul, Śiva, and Śakti, (c) Śiva is Brahman and Śakti is Māyā, neither of which is the soul, (d) the soul is Māyā in relation to Viṣṇu, never Brahman, (e) but Advaita states that the self is Brahman. All the core doctrines of Advaita are false, as far as the Vedic tradition is concerned. They are stilted upon the confusion created by Śaṅkarācārya that the soul is Viṣṇu (the Brahman beyond the material world) or Śiva (the Brahman in the material world). And yet, this delusion is also good if the soul abandons the outward-facing approach to life—as was the case with the ritualistic Brahmanas—and accepts an inward-facing approach to life just like Śiva. By taking an inward approach, the soul won’t become Śiva or Viṣṇu or Brahman. However, it will be liberated from material entanglement.
Śaṅkarācārya’s philosophy can be summarized as a mother telling her child: “You can be whatever you want to be”. Excited by the prospects, the child studies hard and finishes education only to find that he cannot be what he wanted to be, although if he hadn’t finished education, he would be unemployed. Śaṅkarācārya essentially deceived everyone into thinking that they can be God—Śiva or Viṣṇu—so that they would stop performing rituals that are meant to take a person to heaven to become Indra, Chandra, Surya, etc. His essential proposal is—why try to become Indra when you can become Śiva or Viṣṇu? The soul is deceived in this process, and yet, that deception is good because at least he is liberated.
Vedic texts describe a form of liberation called sāyujya-mukti or liberation by merger in which the soul surrenders its unique perspective to some form of divinity and sees the world from their perspective, not its own perspective. This vision of reality from God’s perspective is called liberation by merger. It is as if the soul has become identical to God. However, for this merger to occur, the soul must worship God. Those who want sāyujya-mukti must worship Viṣṇu, Śiva, or Śakti and once they develop a perfect understanding of these personas, they can see the world from their perspective. That seeing the world from a divinity’s perspective is the merger into their body. However, if they don’t worship these divinities, they don’t develop a vision like them, don’t learn how to see the world from their perspective, and then they can never merge. Therefore, even sāyujya-mukti requires the worship of some divinity.
Śaṅkarācārya’s last composition—Bhaja Govinda—should have been a reminder to his followers that they were mistaken in thinking they were Brahman. But they became iconoclastic offenders when they equated the worship of Viṣṇu, Śiva, and Śakti to that of Indra, Chandra, and Surya and rejected all forms of worship—going around telling people that any kind of ritual and deity is material bondage. Factually, God is the soul of a society, that binds the individuals in that society together just like the soul binds the parts of a body together. If the soul leaves the body, the body disintegrates. Similarly, when God left Indian society through Advaita iconoclasm, India was fragmented into regional cultures, which enabled the conquest of India at the hands of Abrahamic religions, and the rest, as they say, is history. We can’t say that the form of God is an illusion and then claim that we are God. That is a royal road to hell.
The central mistake in Advaita is the attempt to take over the entire Vedic tradition, calling itself the sole spiritual truth, and denigrating everyone else as deviant. A person who wants to be self-absorbed or desires sāyujya-mukti can attain that goal only via the worship of Viṣṇu, Śiva, or Śakti. When Advaita rejected all forms of worship, it ensured its own destruction and that of the entire Vedic tradition. Having failed at self-realization, Advaita followers created socialism, equalized all religions, tried to destroy social classes, and called for gender equality, because they think that the replacement of diversity by uniformity is eternal truth. It is absolutely the inversion of truth, and hence its pursuit takes us toward destruction.
The Essential Philosophy of Jainism
Jainism divides reality into two parts—jīva (living) and ajīva (non-living). The non-living is further divided into space, time, matter, and motion. Jains then talk about two kinds of causes—upādāna (material) and nimitta (efficient)—the living is the efficient cause and the non-living is the material cause. Finally, they reject the existence of God on the grounds that like always produces like, God must be living, but since there is non-living (space, time, matter, and motion), hence God cannot produce them. The universe is hence not created or destroyed—it is eternal—although it undergoes cycles of rise and fall.
Jains accept the natural principles of choice and consequence, karma and rebirth, but they treat these as natural laws, rather than under the control of some deity. There are higher beings—Devas—but they don’t interfere in the world because the world is governed by natural laws rather than Devas. Any soul can rise to the status of a Deva by their good deeds just as one can fall into hell due to their bad deeds. Just like the Vedic tradition, heaven and hell are not permanent positions; when the karma created by their deeds is exhausted, they return to earth and continue the process of karma and rebirth. The escape from this cycle of birth and death—to attain liberation—is the ultimate goal of life.
Finally, there are liberated souls, called Tīrthaṅkara, who have transcended the cycle of birth and death and who live in a part of the universe above the realm of Devas. They don’t have a material body, but they are personifications of knowledge, bliss, and perception. Jainism accepts individuality of the soul, and due to the natural law of choice and responsibility, holds each person responsible for the outcomes in their life. Jainism accepts many Vedic deities—including Kṛṣṇa and Baladeva—but describes them as great souls rather than forms of God, who appear in this world periodically to reestablish dharma. Due to the rejection of the forms of God, there is no transcendent realm beyond the current universe.
From a Vedic perspective, the issues with Jainism begin with the characterization of space, time, matter, and motion as non-living. The Vedic tradition would say that whatever we call space is the mind of Śakti, the matter in that space is Her thoughts, whatever we call time is the mind of Śiva, and motion in that time is His thoughts. Whatever we call our senses is a part of Śakti, and the phenomena we experience within the senses are also Her parts. The real things we don’t see, although postulate exist behind these experiences, and describe as inert objects, is Śiva. Our changing experiences are the result of changing senses and bodies both of which are caused due to the will of Śiva and Śakti, not natural laws.
The central question around natural laws has always been the same—i.e., why do they work? Modern science postulates that these laws are mathematical, which requires a cosmic computer for the laws to be computed. For that cosmic computer to work, there must be laws governing the computer, which in turn require another cosmic computer, and so on, ad infinitum. Thus, when we replace a person with a law, we get an infinite cascade of computers computing these laws. That infinite cascade is broken if the law is a person because of will, which is self-governed and doesn’t need an external governor. Within a society, rulers can make laws but unless there is a bureaucracy, police, and judiciary implementing the laws, nothing will happen. Laws don’t work automatically. There has to be a person implementing these laws. Hence, the mere existence of order in the world indicates that a person governs the world.
And yet, when we acknowledge the personal control of the world, we get a lawmaker along with a bureaucracy, police, and judiciary governing the world, which then shifts a person’s focus toward rituals appeasing these governors, as was indeed the case with the ritualistic Vedic tradition. How do we move people away from these rituals toward transcendence? The Jain answer is depersonalization of space, time, matter, and motion, without rejecting the soul, karma, and rebirth, and attributing both natural and moral outcomes to an impersonal law without a lawmaker, bureaucracy, judiciary, or police. By saying that the world is governed by laws rather than persons, we can take them away from rituals. Hence, Jainism is also an adverse reaction to the ritualistic Brahmanas lost in endless rituals.
In Vedic cosmology, above the realm of Devas are four other realms—(a) Jana-Loka, the realm of thinkers and philosophers, (b) Tapa-Loka, the realm of mystics and meditators, (c) Mahar-Loka, the realm of moral rulers and maintainers of dharma, and (d) Satya-Loka, the realm of transcendentalists most of whom are liberated at the end of the universe. The highest realm in Jainism is Tapa-Loka, meant for the meditators who attain mystic powers. This is not a permanent realm but it is higher than that of the ritualists who go to the realm of Devas. The aim of mystic yoga in the Vedic tradition is seeing the Paramātma in the heart, who is the ultimate purpose of everything—including material things—in this world. But if a tradition rejects the existence of the Paramātma, it makes the world purposeless and the tradition seeks salvation through mysticism, which is never perfected although it detaches the person from material enjoyment.
Śakti is Śiva’s power of self-love, self-knowledge, and self-service. When Śakti resides in Śiva, He remains self-absorbed, which is why Śiva is understood as the greatest mystic in the material world. However, the self is not a monolith; it is a collection of infinite potentials that are not experienced in the self-absorbed state. To experience these potentials one after another, the self has to look at itself from different perspectives, which is the reason that Śakti separates from Śiva and becomes the mirror in which Śiva sees Himself in many ways, such that those different self-images of Śiva constitute the material world. Each vision is incomplete so Śiva diverts His attention from one vision to another, which constitutes the evolving world in time. One who can see every vision as Śiva is unperturbed by this changing vision but the soul who sees each vision as a separate thing suffers.
To escape this suffering, one may decide to become self-absorbed, just like Śiva before creation. Mystic yoga is the pursuit of self-absorption and detachment from an evolving world in which the self uses the power of loving, knowing, and serving Śiva into loving, knowing, and serving oneself. Essentially, the same Śakti that is externalized for material enjoyment is internalized for self-realization. However, since that power was never meant for the soul’s self-realization, but for Śiva’s self-realization, its use for alternative purposes is temporary. All mystics eventually fall from self-absorption into material enjoyment. That’s because the power of loving, knowing, and serving we are using for ourselves is not our power.
The general principle is that Puruṣa and Śakti are purpose and power, the soul is a part of Puruṣa, which means it has a purpose, but it doesn’t have a Śakti of its own. The soul has to rely on the Śakti of Puruṣa even to know itself, hence, attempts at knowing oneself—separate from knowing the Puruṣa—are futile. This principle is enunciated by saying that Śakti is the consort of Puruṣa, but the soul’s mother. Through the mother, the soul can know the father, but the soul cannot make Śakti his own consort. Therefore, any attempt at independent self-realization is ultimately a failure. And yet, since the material world is a delusion, one part of that delusion is the soul using Śakti to enjoy the world and the other part is the soul using the same Śakti to become independently self-absorbed. In this pursuit, the soul tries to acquire Śakti for self-love, self-knowledge, and self-service, which means that self-realization—separate from the realization of the Puruṣa—is essentially a Shakta practice. As noted above, Shaktism has two paths—pravṛtti (engagement) and nivṛtti (detachment).
Jainism is the nivṛtti path of Shaktism. Of course, this Shakta practice doesn’t recognize Śakti as a person but depersonalizes Her as a power. One simply assumes that one can gain power through austerities, not asking the question: Where was this power before I acquired it? If the world is eternal (i.e., nothing is created and destroyed), the power must exist somewhere before I get it. That also means someone must become powerless while I am gaining power by austerity. In short, my liberation means someone else’s bondage. How can that be a moral life or even true salvation?
The answer to this quandary is that when we perform austerities, Śakti delegates Her power of pleasure, knowledge, and service into the soul’s self-realization, just like a mother rewards a hard-working child. If there were no mother there would be no self-realization. Of course, those who worship Śakti gain power quicker and those who remain oblivious have to try harder. But if they are inimical to Śakti, then they can never ascend, never mind how hard they try. Due to her compassion for the child, the mother delegates her power to fulfill the child’s wishes. For the soul to say that he attained this power through his austerity is deception at best and futility at worst. The Jain ascent to higher realms is the result of acquiring the power of Śakti to perform austerities, keep the senses and desires in control, and not succumb to material pleasures.
This process is sometimes called willpower, which is the capacity to renounce pleasure and endure pain. Willpower is not one thing; there is will and there is power. The soul has a will but the power is given by Śakti. That union of will and power is similar to the union of Puruṣa and Śakti. But that union is not a permanent condition because the soul is not Puruṣa and Śakti is not its consort. The mother can nourish the child but doesn’t become its consort. Eventually, the soul realizes that the power it got was not his own. If the power had always been his eternal power, then it would have never fallen into the realm of sense pleasure in the first place.
India has always had mystical yoga practitioners, who perform great penances and austerities to rise to higher realms in the universe. The question is: How can some people perform great penances while others can’t? How can some people live in very harsh conditions (e.g., the Himalayas) while others need a comfortable home and bed to sleep in? The answer is that the capacity for penance is acquired by practice. It is not native to the soul, but the body can be toughened to become resilient to hardship. That power is Śakti. Hence, those who perform penances are essentially pursuing Śakti. If they use that Śakti to perceive the Paramātma in the heart, they are called Vaiṣṇavas. But if they use that Śakti to become individually powerful, they are called Shakta.
No Soul vs. One Soul vs. Many Souls
We can contrast Buddhism, Advaita, and Jainism by their descriptions of the soul. In Buddhism, there is no soul as they pursue the state of deep sleep after a merger with a part of Nārāyaṇa. In Advaita, there is one soul as they pursue the state of being one with the whole reality after a merger with a part of Śiva. In Jainism, there are many souls as they pursue a state of individual self-awareness after a merger with a part of Śakti. Their godlessness is the result of trying to merge with God while saying there is no God.
Of course, these mergers are not eternal even if one attains them because (a) Nārāyaṇa eventually goes from deep sleep to dreaming and the soul’s consciousness is pushed out into the world, (b) Śiva is the seen and not the seer so He separates from the soul and the soul’s consciousness is thus pushed into seeing a part of Him rather than being a part of Him, and (c) Śakti is Śiva’s consort, not the soul’s consort, so She separates from the soul and the soul falls from a state of self-awareness into world awareness. Thereby, godlessness—attained by merger into God—is not a permanent state. The personality of God into whom the soul merges doesn’t stay merged with the soul. As that personality separates, the soul falls.
And yet, because Buddhism, Advaita, and Jainism accept a moral way of life through karma and rebirth, their fall into the material world revives the cycle of moral life, whereupon they get another chance at God consciousness—i.e., loving, knowing, and serving God—instead of merging with God. A person may again fall into material enjoyment or Vedic ritualism, again seek a merger with God, and again fall. There is no permanent position other than loving, knowing, and serving God although there are many long-lived positions—mundane material enjoyment is shortest lived, ascent to the status of Devas is longer lived, ascent to Jana, Tapa, Mahar, and Satya is even longer lived, merger with Śiva and Nārāyaṇa is even longer lived, and ultimately, loving, knowing, and serving God is longest-lived, and it can in principle last forever if one doesn’t reject this state.
Tolerance Within the Vedic Tradition
Thus, we find tolerance in the Vedic tradition—it encourages ascent to longer-lived forms of life and accepts religions that take a person upwards, hoping that they may eventually accept loving, knowing, and serving God as the permanent state. It also criticizes the same religions if they elevate long-lived but impermanent states to the supreme or ultimate state of existence. Acceptance and criticism are simply two sides of the same coin—both backed by the same conclusion of the ultimate state of perfection. Acceptance of other traditions is not endorsement and criticism of other traditions is not a wholesale rejection—as long as they are going to take a person to something better than their current state.
A wholesale rejection and criticism are applied to an ideology that will degrade a person rather than elevate them. This includes all those ideologies that reject karma and rebirth because by accepting and endorsing these ideologies one progressively degrades himself to more sinful and tainted lives. Even then, nobody is forbidden from degrading themselves; they can be informed and allowed to choose but never coerced to make the better or best choice. As long as they don’t coerce others to make the same choice they are making, the criticism is very minor. The criticism becomes harsh only when ideologies that reject karma and rebirth try to force themselves on far superior and elevating ideologies.
The Vedic texts themselves criticize Vedic ritualism (called karma kāṇḍa) as not the ultimate state and yet provide it as an option to those who want to go to a longer-lived better state, even if that is not the permanent state. Exclusivist religions misunderstand this critique and acceptance because for them if you critique then you are completely separate and if you accept then you are completely identical. This binary mode of thinking in terms of sectarian ideologies is not part of the Vedic tradition and has not been part of India where other religions appeared. In fact, the Vedic tradition is grateful even to ideologies that it disagrees with because they woke up the tradition from its slumber and led to the revival of the eternal truth.
Thus, our criticism of Buddhism, Advaita, and Jainism is neither devoid of our gratitude toward them, nor a summary rejection of their ideas, nor a summary endorsement of their opposition to Vedic ritualism that they arose from. We think in terms of a ladder with many rungs—every ideology takes us to some rung, an ideology that takes us to the higher rung is better, an ideology that takes us to a lower rung is worse, whereas the ideology that takes us to the highest rung on the ladder is the most perfect.