The Origins of Monotheism
By editor - 11.10 2024
Monotheism—the idea that there is only one deity and all other deities are false or evil—began with Zoroastrians, when they split from the Indo-Aryans. It later spread to the Jews, then to Christians, then to Muslims. That’s a long story that I will try to simplify, summarize, and analyze in this article. The origin of Zoroastrians from the Indo-Aryans is one of the most enduring mysteries for modern historians as they cannot explain why the Aryans split into the cultures of Aryans and Zoroastrians to the point that Zoroastrians began calling the Vedic deities—i.e., the Deva—false and evil. If the historian comes with a background from one of the monotheistic religions, he probably finds it natural and convenient. In this article, I will discuss why it is unnatural (because there isn’t one monotheism, but many of them) and inconvenient (because all these monotheisms have been at each other’s throats for centuries).
Table of Contents
1 Dharma vs. Sanātana-Dharma
2 Deva vs. Bhagavān
3 Polytheism vs. Monotheism
4 Bhagavān vs. Māyā
5 Zoroastrianism vs. the Vedic Tradition
6 Zoroastrianism vs. Abrahamism
7 Singularism vs. Pluralism
8 Open Society vs. Closed Society
9 Monotheism vs. the Vedic Tradition
Dharma vs. Sanātana-Dharma
Since time immemorial, there have been two aspects of the Vedic civilization called dharma and sanātana-dharma (eternal dharma). The word dharma means three things—proclivity, ability, and duty. If we simplify dharma, it just means duty; however, duty cannot be done without ability and it would not be done consistently and persistently without proclivity. Thus, dharma is defined in three ways as duty, ability, and proclivity. For example, the dharma of a Brahmana is the duty of teaching the truth, along with the ability and proclivity to teach. If the ability and/or proclivity disappears, the duty is not done. Thereby, what should be done would be done only if it could be done, and someone wanted to do it. The terms should, could, and would must be combined as duty, ability, and proclivity rather than separated.
Due to the absence of sanātana in dharma, dharma means worldly duties, abilities, and proclivities. It is not transcendental like sanātana-dharma, nor is it eternal. The duties of a person change through the stages of their life. If they belong to a different class, their duties change. Within a class and stage of life, the duty changes for the same person in a different time, place, and situation. Since dharma changes based on time, place, situation, stage of life, and successive births, it is not sanātana or eternal.
The general principle of dharma is a ladder. One should try to rise on this ladder which means prioritizing higher duties above lower duties. However, on a case-to-case basis, the lower rung becomes necessary to preserve the higher rung. For example, non-violence is a higher duty. But if our life is threatened, then violence becomes a duty, on the presumption that by living one would perform higher duties whereas all duties would cease with death. We cannot universalize violence or non-violence. We have to adapt to the time, place, and situation. In general, non-violence is the higher rung of duty; to do that, we must renounce violence. But in rare cases, we step down the ladder of duty to protect the higher rungs, accept violence as a lower rung of duty, and renounce non-violence. The temporary rejection of non-violence is not a permanent permission for violence. Rather, the least amount of violence necessary to go back to non-violence can be used by some persons, at some times, places, and situations. Non-violence is still a higher principle than violence because the goal of violence is to establish non-violence. War is permitted to restore peace.
This violence is also limited to the Kṣatriya class, advised by the Brahmana class on when and where to be violent, how to use violence, how much of it to use, and against whom. Mistakes are possible in dharma. One could use violence when non-violence suffices; one could use excessive violence when little would suffice; one could continue violence when it could be stopped. Due to mistakes in the performance of duty, a person suffers. To put an end to these mistakes, the followers of dharma are educated about the consequences of their actions and ultimately encouraged to seek the eternal over the temporary. The eternal duty is called sanātana-dharma. It is attained when one transcends the material world.
This apparent dichotomy between dharma and sanātana-dharma is seen in Bhagavad-Gita when Kṛṣṇa asks Arjuna—a Kṣatriya—to fight. While Arjuna wants non-violence, Kṛṣṇa asks him to be violent. That is not a permanent endorsement of violence. It is limited to doing justice and undoing injustice, and when justice has been done, it stops to not perpetuate any more injustice. Initially, Kṛṣṇa describes this war as Arjuna’s dharma as a Kṣatriya. But Arjuna is not satisfied with the temporary and changing nature of dharma. Hence, Kṛṣṇa then describes the principle of sanātana-dharma as doing what He wants to be done. Arjuna agrees to the war based on sanātana-dharma, having rejected it based on dharma.
Bhagavad-Gita illustrates the tension between dharma and sanātana-dharma, how the latter supersedes the former, and yet, both exist. Even violence is sometimes necessary to protect dharma and sanātana-dharma. This complexity in dharma and sanātana-dharma has been an enduring source of confusion, especially in the subsequent times. The proponents of sanātana-dharma emphasize eternal duty while the proponents of dharma talk of temporary duty. If the lessons of Bhagavad-Gita are not understood, or forgotten, then we don’t know how to balance, prioritize, and synthesize these two requirements.
Deva vs. Bhagavān
Bhagavān, or what most people call God at present, is the repository of six qualities—knowledge, beauty, independence, power, wealth, and fame. This is called sad-ujjvala-vigrahasya or the form of six effulgent qualities. Deva, which is loosely translated as a demigod (because there is no good equivalent in English), comes from the Sanskrit root div which means effulgence. It became the word divine, dissolving the difference between Bhagavān and Deva. The difference is that Bhagavān is complete effulgence while Deva is partial effulgence. We have to say something about effulgence to explain what it is.
Each of the six qualities noted above divides into parts. Thereby, there are many kinds of knowledge, beauty, independence, power, wealth, and fame. This division of the whole into parts is effulgence. We can give the example of the Sun; the Sun is the whole light and its effulgence is partial light. The Sun is a person and light is his energy. In the Vedic texts, they are called Surya and Savita; Surya is the sun-deity and Savita is the sun-light. The same principle applies to Bhagavān. He is the person and the six qualities are His light. Durga personifies power and independence; Saraswatī personifies knowledge and beauty; Lakṣmī personifies wealth and fame. Then there are parts of these qualities personified in Deva. A Deva never exceeds Bhagavān in any quality, let alone all the qualities together. Hence, a Deva is subordinate to Bhagavān, having received a part of His effulgence, through Durga, Lakṣmī, and Saraswatī.
Effulgence is what someone can give, which is the measure of their greatness. Bhagavān can give the most because He has the most, and by that giving, He is never diminished. Hence, He is the greatest. Everyone else can give something lesser, and so they are lesser. If they are diminished by giving, they are ordinary. A rich man in this world is ordinary because his wealth diminishes by giving it away. A man who steals from others, rather than gives to them, is the most inferior. The root div defines a great person by their capacity to give, not be diminished by that giving, and hence the ability to keep giving forever.
Each problem in the material world needs a specific combination of some parts of the six qualities to solve it. The Vedic tradition describes a Deva as a specific combination of some parts of the six qualities, which constitute their effulgence, or their capacity to give. The worship of Deva was meant, in the Vedic tradition, to receive the ability to solve the problems of life. Since there are many kinds of problems, each needing a different combination of the six effulgences, many Devas were worshipped.
However, solving one problem doesn’t end all problems. After solving one problem, there is another; after solving that, there is another. The proponents of sanātana-dharma emphasized escape from this endless chain of problems. If problems are not solved correctly, this chain becomes a cycle, which means the same problems recur. A person begins with a solution to a problem, and moves onto other problems and their solutions, but eventually returns to the same problem. The proponent of sanātana-dharma asks: How long are you going stay in this cycle of problems? Find a way to escape this cycle.
However, the proponent of dharma does not see the endless cycle of problems and its long-term solution. He wants a solution to the current problem. His short-term perspective keeps him trapped in an endless cycle of problems. He cannot solve the long-term problem without tolerating the short-term problem. Since he cannot tolerate short-term problems, he never solves the long-term problem. A high degree of resilience, tolerance, and endurance is required even to focus on long-term problems.
The Vedic tradition addressed this issue by a method of ritual sacrifices in which Bhagavān is always made the first and the last offering. The first offering signifies that Bhagavān is the Supreme Deity. The last offering signifies that He is the ultimate goal. The Devas were offered in the middle of the ritual sacrifice. They are neither the supreme deities nor the ultimate goals. If these rituals are performed correctly, their practitioner gradually comes to prioritize the Supreme Deity and the ultimate goal. The tension between dharma and sanātana-dharma is thus resolved amicably in the Vedic tradition.
Polytheism vs. Monotheism
The dawn of Kali-Yuga, about 5000 years ago, marked the beginning of the decline of this resolution between dharma and sanātana-dharma. The decline was gradual rather than sudden. Initially, Bhagavān, Mahādeva, and Deva were all worshipped. Progressively, Bhagavān disappeared, and while Mahādeva remained, the emphasis shifted to the Devas. The Indus Valley Civilization excavation shows the oldest seal of Viṣṇu going back to 4,700 years, in a seated posture, sheltered by Śeṣa. The oldest images of Paśupati, the personification of Cosmic Time called Śiva or Mahādeva, go back 4,500 years. The oldest image of Śakti, giving birth to an inverted tree representing the material world, dates back to 4,200 years. As time passed, the lower deities, such as Surya, Varuṇa, Indra, Vāyu, and Bhūmi gained prominence. At even later stages, trees (such as Peepal) and animals (such as the Humped Bull) gained prominence.
In short, the resolution of the tension between dharma and sanātana-dharma, formulated in the Vedic texts, gradually dissipated as people descended from emphasizing Bhagavān, to Mahādeva, to Śakti, to Deva, to animals, and trees. They began neglecting higher duties and emphasizing the lower duties. They focused on the temporary, neglected the eternal, and gradually started losing their effulgence.
At this juncture emerged a revivalist teacher, named Zarathustra, who talked about putting the emphasis back on the highest deity—i.e., Bhagavān—removing it from other deities. His revivalist movement is today known as monotheism. It turned against what it called polytheism, although there was no time when the Indus-Valley Civilization equated a tree to Deva, Śakti, Mahādeva, or Bhagavān. Claiming that these were equal—implied by the term polytheism—was monotheism venting hyperbolically.
The above-mentioned split is presently described in many ways—(a) the Indo-Iranian split, (b) the Aryan-Zoroastrian split, (c) a split within the Aryans, (d) the emergence of Zoroastrian monotheism, and (e) the decline of the polytheistic Indus-Valley civilization. The Zoroastrians talk about the greatest, wisest, and supreme creator, referring to Bhagavān Viṣṇu. They call the polytheistic Indus-Valley Civilization an evil, malicious, malevolent, decadent, wicked, and sinful society opposed to the one true deity. The Indus Valley Civilization did not respond to this hyperbolic rhetoric. This probably angered Zoroastrians more.
Bhagavān vs. Māyā
Even in the Vedic texts, the material world, and all creations within it, are called the byproducts of Māyā, which means illusion, the opposite of truth. Māyā also comprises the six effulgences but in Māyā, these six effulgences become mutually exclusive. It means that those who have knowledge often do not have wealth and power. Conversely, those with wealth and power, generally have no knowledge. Where there is beauty, there is often no truth, and where there is truth there is often no beauty. Those who speak the truth are neglected and those who lie become famous.
The mutual exclusion of these six qualities creates jealousy, which is the simultaneous love and hate for everyone. Someone is loved if they have an effulgence that we don’t have. But they are hated because we become inferior to them by not having their effulgence. Thus, everyone wants to take everything to become whole and wants to give nothing because it reduces their effulgence, but by taking without giving they lose their effulgence anyway. Jealousy is Māyā and worsens the situation. Instead of making us more complete in the six effulgences, Māyā makes us more incomplete.
Māyā is called delusion because everyone thinks they can become greater by taking something from others without giving anything back to them. But that is precisely the method by which they become smaller. The pursuit of eminence makes a person mediocre. The desire for superiority leads to inferiority. Māyā thus creates cycles of greatness and smallness, eminence and mediocrity, superiority and inferiority. There can never be continuous progress in the realm of Māyā. The world never ends because duality means cycles.
Māyā and Bhagavān are simply two aspects of the same reality even as Māyā is the opposite of Bhagavān. Bhagavān is the combination, harmony, and coexistence of the six effulgences while Māyā is the mutual exclusion, conflict, and separation of the same six effulgences. The devotees of Bhagavān have partial aspects of Bhagavān but no jealousy of Bhagavān. A person comes into Māyā when he feels inferior for only being a part, wants to become the whole, and develops jealousy of Bhagavān. Bhagavān has no jealousy of Himself. But He has the power to deal with jealousy. That power becomes the material world and is called Bhagavān’s power.
The situation is just like a person who has both peaceful and violent tendencies, prioritizes the peaceful tendency, but is not incapable of violence. He behaves peacefully with the peaceful and violently with the violent. Peace and violence are potentials in a person—akin to the good and evil in him—but this duality does not become a conflict if the good and evil are tit-for-tat responses to similar natures. Evil is bad only if used against the good. Good is also bad if it supports the evil. If good and evil are tit-for-tat responses to alike natures, both are good. The tit-for-tat response of evil toward evil reforms the evil and makes it good.
Thus, evil is short-lived, and good is eternal. Even when the world of Māyā is created, the eternal world, far bigger than the world of Māyā, doesn’t cease to exist. Māyā is a corner in existence. The illusion is temporary and the truth is eternal. Thus, Māyā is a part of Bhagavān, opposed to Bhagavān’s good nature, without a conflict between the two. Bhagavān and Māyā are good and evil, yet two aspects of the same person. Those aspects are not equalized because of Bhagavān’s tit-for-tat tendency.
Zoroastrianism vs. the Vedic Tradition
Bhagavān and Māyā are called His waking and dreaming states. It means that a part living in harmony with the whole is waking while the part trying to replace the whole and other parts is a delusion. Mahādeva embraces Māyā to create the material world but is not affected by Her. Their children are influenced by Māyā to varying degrees. Māyā is divided into progressively worse forms of jealousy, called sattvic, rajasic, and tamasic; sattvic is better than rajasic which is better than tamasic. They are all Māyā in one sense but different from each other in another sense. Both Deva and Asura are Māyā. However, Deva is better than Asura. There is no conflict between calling Deva better than Asura, worshipping Deva and not Asura, and calling all of them Māyā. That is due to the ladder of dharma. Deva is a higher rung on the ladder than Asura. But relative to the highest rung of Bhagavān, or even Mahādeva and Śakti, they are quite low on the ladder.
A deep understanding of these principles is called non-duality in which (a) there are two opposite things called good and evil, (b) they are ultimately both good because when good is applied to good, the good grows, but when evil is applied to evil, the evil ends, (c) they are distinct from each other as opposite aspects of a person, and (d) their mutual opposition does not result in a conflict between them. Those who cannot understand the sophisticated principles of non-duality fall into the trap of duality.
Zarathustra, the founder of Zoroastrianism, turned the compatibility between Bhagavān and Māyā into their mutual opposition and fell into the trap of duality. He conceived two forces in the world, akin to Bhagavān and Māyā, and called them Ahura Mazda and Angira Mainyu. The former was good and the latter was evil. There was a war between them, with the good winning over the evil. He disregarded the differences within evil—called sattva, rajas, and tamas in the Vedic tradition. He disregarded the fact that both good and evil are aspects of one person—Bhagavān. Through these, he transformed the ladder of duties, with thousands of rungs on it, into a binary state of good vs. evil. Monotheism became good and polytheism became evil. The subtlety and sophistication of the Vedic tradition were oversimplified.
Zoroastrianism created the idea of continuous progress in the world, culminating in the end of the world, presently called Escatology. The Vedic tradition talked about the realm of Māyā being an eternal cycle. Zoroastrianism replaced the cycle with linear progress culminating in an end. Zoroastrianism did not identify jealousy as the evil. It advocated jealousy of others followed by their destruction as the good. Thus, the Vedic idea of separating oneself from the world was replaced by the idea of changing the world. The inward journey of the Vedic tradition became the outward journey of Zoroastrianism.
Zoroastrianism vs. Abrahamism
The contact between Zoroastrians and Jews occurred through an accident of history. The Babylonians conquered Israel and sacked the main temple of the Jews in 586 BCE. They exported the Jews out of Israel and took them to Babylon, hoping that once they were separated from their land, they would also give up their ideas and practices. Babylonians ruled over Israel for 47 years. Then in 539 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus conquered Babylonia and passed a decree to free the Jews to allow them to return to Israel. Some Jews returned, but many stayed in Babylonia. Many immigrated to Persia. In all these places, Jews began integrating within the new societies and started assimilating their ideas, cultures, and religions.
Jews took the concepts of Divine Law from the Babylonians. They took the concept of Monotheism from the Zoroastrians, from whom they also got the concepts of Eschatology, i.e., the end of the world, the rule of divine kings all over the world before its end, which results in the destruction of evil and the victory of the good, which means the destruction of polytheism and the victory of monotheism.
The Zoroastrian influence on the Jews should not be seen as Jews taking other’s ideas without reason. It involved great soul-searching, to find the answer to the question of why they were taken out of their homeland. According to the Jewish covenant, God had promised Jews the land of Israel in exchange for following the Ten Commandments. The soul-searching involved asking: If Jews were following God’s commandments, then why did God evict them from their promised land? It resulted in the conclusion that they must have violated some commandments. All fingers pointed toward the Jewish acceptance of other deities, which existed in Canaan at that time, as the Jews mixed with the residents of Canaan freely and amicably. They might not have worshipped the Canaanite deities but they participated in their festivals.
The Zoroastrian ideas of good vs. evil convinced the Jews that they were defeated by Babylonia and lost their land because they had chosen to be amiable with the worshippers of gods other than their principal deity Yahweh. Thus, arose the concept of a Jealous God, who abhors other gods and punishes their followers by taking away their land. This idea fitted with the Zoroastrian dualistic ideas in which polytheism was the evil, monotheism was the only good, and neglecting the good and following the evil led to the loss of Jewish land.
In the process, the polytheistic Babylonians also became evil, not just enemies. Thus began the modern practice of demonizing your enemies by calling them the Axis of Evil. The Jewish soul-searching led to their conclusion that they must reject polytheism, hate the polytheists, and try to destroy them. If they did all these things, God would not just give them the land of Israel, but also a place in heaven. If instead, they did not do so, God will take away their land, and at the end of the world, send them to hell. Since there is no world after the end of the world, therefore, the hell they are sent to will be eternal. All these ideas were subsequently picked up by Christianity and Islam and became Abrahamic Monotheism.
The big difference between them is that the Zoroastrian monotheistic deity is not the Jewish, Christian, or Islamic monotheistic deity. They are all different from each other and coopted from the local polytheistic religions that they emerged from. The Jewish monotheistic deity is Yahweh, a rain and storm deity, just like Indra in the Vedic tradition. The Christian monotheistic deity is Deus, derived from the pre-Christian deity of Mithra, which is one of the 12 forms of the solar deity, called Surya in the Vedic tradition. The Islamic monotheistic deity is Allah-Allat, a deity with a crescent moon on the head, just like Śiva in the Vedic tradition. The Zoroastrian monotheistic deity is Ahura Mazda, the deity of medhā, which is knowledge and intelligence, just like Viṣṇu in the Vedic tradition. Thus, many deities are hidden within monotheism, comparable to Indra, Surya, Śiva, and Viṣṇu. The monotheistic religions have been fighting and destroying each other because they cannot agree on who the one true God is. They demonize each other and try to destroy each other. Even sects of some monotheistic religions have been attacking each other for ages. The ideology of monotheism has been a catastrophic failure.
Singularism vs. Pluralism
The situation in India has been exactly the opposite. India gave birth to other religions such as Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. The Vedic tradition is itself divided into Shaivism, Shaktism, and Vaiṣṇavism, with many sects within them. Even monotheistic religions have been sheltered in India for many centuries. India sheltered Zoroastrians when they were driven out of Persia. India sheltered Jews when they were driven out of Israel. India sheltered Christians when they were driven out of Syria. India could not grasp, given its pluralistic history, the exclusivist nature of Islamic and Christian ideology. At present, India is the most religiously diverse society in the world. It doesn’t want to stop anyone from practicing their chosen form of religion, provided it is not hindered from practicing something in the Vedic religion.
Any nationalistic rhetoric in India is simply a response to the Abrahamic attempts to destroy the Vedic tradition. We should not be surprised that Abrahamic religions have been trying to destroy the Vedic tradition for centuries because they have been doing the same thing to every other Abrahamic religion and to the sects within their religions, for centuries. Their violence is their natural condition. It has nothing to do with the Vedic tradition; it has everything to do with their demonizing of the other. It doesn’t matter who the other is. Whoever they are, they will be demonized and attacked on some innocuous pretext. Those pretexts are too many to list and/or summarize for a minimal brain like mine. Most Indians have now figured out that they are demonized because they are different from monotheism. All the reasons for that demonization don’t matter because everyone different is always demonized.
The inclusivity of the Vedic tradition is rooted in its conceptions of reality as a ladder. In each person, there is a ladder of body, senses, mind, intellect, ego, the moral sense, the unconscious, and the soul. The higher rungs on the ladder of each person don’t exploit, purge, or subjugate the lower rungs. In society, there is a ladder of four classes. The higher rungs on the social ladder don’t exploit, purge, or subjugate the lower classes. The universe is a ladder of fourteen rungs. The higher rungs on the universal ladder don’t exploit, purge, or subjugate the lower rungs. Among the deities, there is a ladder of millions of deities. The higher deities on the deity ladder don’t exploit, purge, or subjugate the lower deities.
Likewise, in the Vedic worldview, there is a ladder of religions. The higher rungs on the religion ladder don’t exploit, purge, or subjugate the lower rungs. They are just like the different parts of the body, the different classes of a society, the different levels of the universe, the different tiers of deities. The Vedic tradition doesn’t have an exclusive classification reserved for religions. It conceives of every person, every society, the entire universe, and the entire existence in terms of ladders. When every kind of variety exists as different rungs on a ladder, why should the variety of religions be any different?
Open Society vs. Closed Society
The position of a rung on a ladder can be established by reason and observation. Everyone can rise to a higher rung on the ladder through the practice of a process. Nobody has a permanent status on any rung—lower or higher—unless they want to stay there. Everyone is encouraged to rise through the rungs of the ladder and discouraged from falling through the rungs of the ladder. But this encouragement to rise is not a mandate for everyone nor is discouragement from falling a commandment for everyone. These are choices an individual makes for themselves. They receive the consequences of their choices.
This is the Vedic conception of an open society—choice and responsibility. Giving people freedom and expecting freedom from them. The enemies of the open society, on the other hand, are those that try to flatten the ladder, destroy the rungs, and bring everyone down to the lowest rung; after they have done that, they want to appoint themselves to the highest rungs to exploit, subjugate, and purge others.
All monotheistic cultures, and their derivatives and descendants, are enemies of an open society. They try to impose their will on others, believing that they are especially empowered to do so. The reason for their assumed privilege can be that they believe that they are God’s chosen people. Or, that they belong to a special skin color and/or landmass. Or, that they acquired wealth and power through moral and/or immoral means. The enemy of an open society is anyone who tries to impose his or her will on others. It is not enough for them to choose their way of life. They want to force their choices on others.
The desire to impose one’s will on others results from shame and self-loathing within a person. He tries to suppress his innate inferiority by outwardly projecting superiority. He becomes a bully and demands obedience without commanding it. He believes that if he can instill fear in others, he has gained their respect. Thereby, a person suffering from shame and self-loathing is also addicted to self-delusion. Of course, that delusion is temporary. When it is destroyed, it worsens the shame and self-loathing.
Monotheism vs. the Vedic Tradition
The birth of monotheism from the Vedic tradition is rooted in two problems: (a) the Vedic tradition in the Indus-Valley Civilization declined, and (b) the revivalist movement misunderstood the nature of the relation between Bhagavān and Māyā. The decline of the Vedic tradition in the Indus Valley was not uniform across India; some parts continued correctly. The misunderstanding of the relation between Bhagavān and Māyā was also not uniform across India; some parts continued correctly. Nevertheless, due to the general pattern of decline across India, even the rest of India began creating godless religions because they began thinking of the world as Māyā, Bhagavān as yet another form of Māyā, the self to be the only truth, thus producing a dualism between the world and the self. While monotheistic religions kept the concept of Bhagavān in some rudimentary form, Indian religions—such as Advaita, Buddhism, and Jainism—rejected Bhagavān and formed different theories of the world and the self within it.
And so, today we have the alphabet soup of religions, all contradictory to each other, all trying to gain dominance over the others, without a good understanding of what created this alphabet soup. If we go back in time, then all religions looked over 80% similar. At present, it is hard to get any agreement between any two religions. This trend is forecasted in the Vedic texts as the nature of Kali-Yuga, which means the age of quarrels. One thing becomes opposite things. But people have such bad memories that they don’t remember the past. They don’t study history and don’t try to understand the source of the present problems. Instead of correcting mistakes of the past, they fight based on the mistakes.
All singularity ideologies are sectarian, attack others, and are attacked by them in return. They think that they will destroy the others, but in their conflict, both sides are destroyed. The clash between thesis and antithesis doesn’t produce a synthesis, nor does it give a victory of the thesis over the antithesis. It is simply a case of mutually assured destruction.
In the age of Kali-Yuga, synthesis divides into thesis and antithesis to create a war, destroy both sides in the war, and bring in nihilism. In Satya-Yuga, thesis and antithesis merge to form a synthesis, destroying war and nihilism. However, since Satya-Yuga and Kali-Yuga follow each other, eternal progress doesn’t exist. The Hegelian idea of thesis and antithesis merging into a synthesis is true for Satya-Yuga and false for Kali-Yuga. The idea of eternal progress through synthesis is completely false. But because the idea of eternal progress, accompanied by the idea of changing the world, is ingrained in people, they try to impose their will on others and enter into wars with others, which doesn’t end the world although it ends the warring sides. The ideology that survives is one that doesn’t impose its will on others and doesn’t allow others to impose their will on itself.