The Origins of Monotheism

By editor - 11.12 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 Duality vs. Non-Duality
6 Jarūthaḥ vs. Vasiṣṭha
7 Demigods vs. Demons
8 Zoroastrian vs. Vedic
9 Gnostics vs. Zoroastrians
10 Henotheism vs. Monolatry
11 Monolatry vs. Monotheism
12 Zoroastrianism vs. Judaism
13 Liberalism vs. Conservatism
14 Original vs. Later Christianity
15 Violent vs. Non-Violent Ideas
16 Monotheism vs. Satanism
17 Singularism vs. Pluralism
18 Open vs. Closed Society
19 Monotheism vs. Hinduism
20 Cyclical vs. Linear Time

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.

Bhagavān vs. Māyā

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.

Duality vs. Non-Duality

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.

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 dream. 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.

An 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. Bhagavān is the personification of non-duality and Mahādeva and Śakti are the personification of duality. They are just like day and night, but there is no conflict between them. The opposite natures of Bhagavān and Mahādeva can seem like a duality, but they are not.

Jarūthaḥ vs. Vasiṣṭha

The split within the Vedic tradition is rooted in a disagreement about non-duality. The Vedic texts discuss a conflict between two sages Jarūthaḥ and Vasiṣṭha, which eventually resulted in Jarūthaḥ forming a new religion that we today call Zoroastrianism. The Zoroastrian text Zend Avesta calls these two personalities Zarathustra and Vahishtha. The essential disagreement between them is about whether there is a world beyond this world, i.e., the world of non-duality. Vasiṣṭha, following the Vedic tradition, accepts this realm while Jarūthaḥ opposes it. Instead of light and dark being contrasted as spirit and matter, Jarūthaḥ sees it as a duality of good vs. evil within this world.

Spirit vs. matter (Bhagavān and Mahādeva) is not a hard duality but good vs. evil in this world is hard. The material duality exists as the opposition between Deva (demigods) and Asura (demons) in the Vedic texts. The Deva worship Bhagavān and the Asura worship Mahādeva. But while there is no conflict between Bhagavān and Mahādeva, there is conflict between Deva and Asura. The difference in their character is that the Devas don’t want to replace the Asuras, but the Asuras want to replace the Devas. In a war, Asuras are attackers and Devas are defenders. Thus, if the conception of non-duality is discarded, spirit vs. matter becomes good vs. evil and changes into a hard duality.

Duality is not restricted to Deva vs. Asura. It is all-pervasive as opposites in nature. However, if these opposites cooperate, they are Deva, and if they conflict they are Asura. An example of cooperating opposites is the deities of day (Mitra) and night (Varuṇa), two of the twelve Aditya. The example of conflicting opposites is Deva and Asura. Among the Deva, day and night are not battling each other. But if we see this duality through the lens of Deva and Asura, then day and night become mutual enemies. And thus, Mitra and Varuna can be seen as enemies.

The conflict between Jarūthaḥ and Vasiṣṭha takes a turn for the worse when Jarūthaḥ inverts the Vedic tradition in many ways: (a) denies non-duality beyond this world, (b) replaces spirit vs. matter with good vs. evil in this world, (c) downgrades Devas who worship Bhagavān as a result of rejecting non-duality beyond this world, (d) upgrades Asuras who worship Mahādeva as a result of accepting the duality of this world, (e) downgrades Mithra who is more Deva than Asura, and (f) upgrades Varuṇa who is more Asura than Deva. The inversion originated in the rejection of a world beyond the material duality, percolated successively in the rejection of all that emphasized non-duality through Bhagavān and Deva, and finally inverted the hierarchy of Deva and Asura.

Demigods vs. Demons

There was no system of worshipping Asura in the Vedic tradition, so subdivisions within them were unknown. There is only one Asura consistently recognized in the Vedic tradition, the teacher of Asuras, called Śukrācārya. All other Asura are disciples of Śukrācārya and change with time. None of these Asura were worshipped in the Vedic tradition. Meanwhile, numerous Deva were being worshipped.

Jarūthaḥ uses the absence of detail regarding the Asuras to say that there is only one Asura, which becomes his Monotheism. Since there are numerous Deva, whose status is lower than the Asura, they become inferior Polytheistic deities. Their characterization evolves over time; initially, the Devas are inferior to the one supreme Asura, and Zoroastrianism is Henotheistic. The situation, at this juncture, can be described as one Asura ruling over all the Devas. However, probably to accommodate the fact that the Devas then attack the Asuras to regain their position, eventually, the Devas become the evil opponents of the Asura, and Zoroastrianism becomes dualistic.

In the Vedic tradition, we find that Bhagavān never insists on His exclusive worship. Instead, the principle is that those who worship ghosts go to the place of the ghosts, those who worship ancestors go to the place of ancestors, those who worship the demigods go to the place of the demigods, and those who worship Bhagavān go His place. There is choice and consequence but no exclusivity. The same holds true for Mahādeva and Śakti. They have their worshippers, neither of those are coerced to exclusively worship either or both. There is choice and consequence but no exclusivity. The same holds for the Devas. Indra doesn’t ask his followers to stop worshipping Chandra, Surya, or Varuṇa, even as he is the leader of the Devas. There is choice and consequence but no exclusivity. In fact, Bhagavān, Mahādeva, Śakti, and Deva don’t even ask anyone to stop worshipping Asuras. The principle is simply that those who worship Asuras go to the place of Asuras. There is choice and consequence but no exclusivity.

However, when Asuras come to power, they stop everyone else’s worship and demand to be worshipped exclusively. Every demon ruling over the world, in the Vedic description, entails the destruction of all other forms of worship. Therefore, exclusivism in religion is an Asura ideology, not a Deva, Mahādeva, Śakti, or Bhagavān ideology. Monotheism is not the worship of Bhagavān because He never demands exclusivity from worshippers (unless His devotees want to only be with Him). Monotheism is the enforcement of an exclusive system of worship on the unwilling, accompanied by the destruction of their chosen form of worship, and is therefore an Asura ideology.

Asuras demand exclusive devotion to themselves and expect their worshippers to sing their glories and wonderous qualities. When the Asuras conquer the world in the Vedic texts, they engage Apsaras, Gandharvas, Vidyādharas, and Chāranas to sing their glories accompanied by music and dance. They want their conquests on the battlefield to be read as scripture. They expect people to imbibe their ideology as education. Ignorant people reading these descriptions might think that they are glorifying Bhagavān. But there is no love in them because they are incentivized by a carrot and stick method (if you do it, you will be rewarded, if you don’t do it, you will be punished). Bhagavān’s religion has no incentives. The religion of Deva, Mahādeva, and Śakti has rewards if you do it, but no punishment if you don’t. The religion of Asuras has both rewards and punishments. The punishments for not worshipping the Asuras make the religion exclusivist.

Zoroastrians continued the Vedic tradition of fire sacrifices, but now they started offering to Asuras, instead of Devas. Their Monotheism became exclusivism. We will later see how the exclusivism of Asura worship eventually led to what we presently call Satanism.

Zoroastrian vs. Vedic

This opposition to the Vedic tradition is couched in a revivalist format of putting the emphasis back on the highest deity (who in the Vedic tradition meant Bhagavān) and removing it from the lower deities. But the lower-upper definition is already inverted. The higher level is monolithic because nobody in the Vedic tradition worshipped Asuras and they were a monolithic category. This revivalist movement is actually not revivalist because the definition of good and evil has already been inverted, although it is presented as such. It is today known as Monotheism. It turned against 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, who is actually Bhagavān Viṣṇu. But what they probably mean is Mahādeva, who is also wise, although as the master of delusion who is not himself deluded by it. They called the Indus-Valley Civilization which worshipped other deities evil. The Indus Valley Civilization did not respond to this accusation as no known conflict exists between these two religions.

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 the 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.

Modern scholars believe that Zoroastrianism was originally Henotheistic, i.e., accepted many deities with a Supreme Deity. Over time, it increasingly rejected lower deities. The Devas were designated as the evil ones, the followers of Angira Mainyu. Gradually, Monotheism became good and the other deities became evil. Zoroastrianism created the idea of the end of the world, presently called Escatology. The Vedic tradition talked about the realm of Māyā being an eternal cycle. Zoroastrianism replaced the eternal cycle with an end. At the time of this end, evil is destroyed and only goodness remains. This involves a final battle and victory of Ahura Mazda over Angira Mainyu.

Angira Mainyu (also called Ahriman) and Ahura Mazda appear to be related to the Vedic tradition (although inverted in their roles), where Angiras is a sage who taught Bṛhaspati (the teacher of the demigods) but neglected Śukrācārya (the teacher of the demons). Śukrācārya then studied with Gautam, worshipped Shiva, and obtained the recipe for the Mritasanjivani (either a medicine or a mantra or both) from Him, which could bring the dead back to life, which he used to rejuvenate Asuras who died in war with Devas. In Zoroastrianism, Angira Mainyu (the disciple of Angiras) becomes the evil force while Śukrācārya (the teacher of the demons) is called Ahura Mazda (Asura Medhā, or the intelligent demon), the good force. Two teachers are elevated to the status of good and evil, although their roles are reversed.

Due to this inversion, it is very difficult to talk about Ahura Mazda because technically, the name means Śukrācārya, but since demons worship Shiva, the name could mean Mahādeva, but the way he is described as the greatest and wisest, it could mean Bhagavān. This problem is inherent in all Abrahamic religions which inherited Zoroastrian ideas because God and demons are mixed into one. To the insiders, the Abrahamic deity is the greatest and the wisest; to the outsiders, he appears to be a demon. This dichotomy created due to inversion has been the source of endless confusion in Monotheistic religions because we can’t decide if God is good or evil.

Gnostics vs. Zoroastrians

The problem with Zoroastrianism is seen clearly when contrasted to Gnostics who describe two personas: (a) the Demiurge, who created or rather produced the world which is ignorance, and (b) the Monad, the Supreme Being, who is enlightenment. These correspond respectively to Mahādeva (Demiurge) and Bhagavān (Monad). In all Gnostic traditions, the Demiurge is a lower divinity that governs the material universe. However, some forms of Gnosticism (called Sethian Gnosticism) portray the Demiurge as an oppressive ruler, personifying ignorance, and intentionally binding souls into a corrupt material realm. Other forms of Gnosticism (called Valentinian Gnosticism) portray the Demiurge as a well-intentioned but limited figure whose rule represents ignorance of the material realm rather than malice.

Both these positions are accepted for Mahādeva in the Vedic tradition. He personifies the duality of material existence which means the separation of the six qualities of Bhagavān, due to which whenever something is gained, something else is lost. He also binds the soul to the material world through the consequences of good or bad actions. And yet, this bondage to the material realm is only meant to teach the soul that the perfection of the six qualities of Bhagavān cannot be found in the material world, and one has to transcend this realm. As a punisher and enforcer of bondage, Mahādeva appears oppressive. But as the educator who teaches transcendence, He is well-intentioned.

In the Greek text Timaeus, Plato refers to the Demiurge as one who “fashioned and shaped” the material world, with lower deities (stars, planets, and other Greek deities) being a part of Him. He is the deity of Becoming, distinct from that of Being, and yet one that resembles that of Being. This is almost exactly how Mahādeva is described as the persona of time (Becoming) and Bhagavān as the persona of eternity (Being). Plato believed that the Demiurge created the lower deities (such as Zeus and Hera, who are called Indra and Sachi in the Vedic tradition). This is also how Deva (Indra) is contrasted to Mahādeva (Shiva). In other places, Gnostics talked about a primordial creation from two forces, Order and Chaos, which denoted the differentiated and undifferentiated, called Shiva and Śakti in the Vedic tradition.

Note how there is no war between opposites, although there are opposites such as Order and Chaos, Demiurge and Monad, illusion and enlightenment, lower and higher. In Neoplatonism, the Demiurge became Nous (mind of God) with the world existing within it. The Nous had three features, Arche (the source or creator), Logos (the controller or order underneath the appearances), and Harmonia (a pleasing arrangement for enjoyment, like the notes of music). This is also how Vedic texts describe God as the creator (chit), controller (sat), and enjoyer (ānanda). Even as the material world is a delusion, it is enjoyable as a dream, or as an actor playing a character different from himself, and enjoying it.

Gnosticism taught the need to attain enlightenment and escape the world of delusion. The focus was spiritual awakening that comes from gaining direct knowledge of the hidden divinity within each person through mystical insight. As humans awaken the divine spark within them, through a process that culminates in realizing their true nature, the pathway to their true home (out of the material world) is revealed to them. As we will see later, Jesus was a Gnostic and the Supreme Being for him was the Monad of Gnosticism. It had no relation to Monotheism as created by Zoroastrianism, later inherited by Judaism, and then by Christianity. In fact, Christians called Gnostic sects heresies and persecuted them. Gnostics did not have an organized institution but their texts (Nag Hammadi) have survived.

Henotheism vs. Monolatry

Judaism is a different branch of Monotheism with a separate origin although it intersected with Zoroastrianism which transformed Jews from Henotheists to Monotheists. Presently, Judaism tells a false story of the Jewish persecution and immigration out of Egypt: (a) Jews lived in Egypt where they practiced Monotheism, (b) Jews were persecuted by the Polytheistic Egyptians, (c) Jews wanted to leave Egypt due to this persecution but the Pharaoh would not allow them, (d) God brought a series of ten plagues on Egypt, after which the Pharaoh allowed the Jews to leave, (e) the Jews crossed the Red Sea after God parted the sea for them, (f) they wandered the desert for 40 years, and (g) God revealed the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai and allotted them the land of Israel. This story is fabricated because (a) there is no evidence of Jews being native to Egypt or migrating out of Egypt, and (b) there is ample evidence of them always living in Israel.

The seeds of Jewish Monotheism lie in the Monolatry in Egypt when the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten (1350 BCE) instituted the worship of the image of one deity without denying the existence of other deities. The Egyptian religion was Henotheistic, i.e., they had a hierarchy of deities, with a Supreme Deity. Monolatry was worshipping the Supreme Deity without denying the existence of other deities. Thus, Henotheism and Monolatry existed side-by-side. But if someone wanted, they could worship the Supreme Deity before the other deities. This worship involved ritual sacrifices. The rich could make sacrifices for many deities but the poor could not. Hence, the poor followed Monolatry while the rich worshipped many lower deities after worshipping the Supreme Deity. The Egyptian priesthood benefitted from many sacrifices and tilted toward the rich rather than the poor. This created a rich-poor schism in society with the priesthood favoring the rich over the poor.

Egyptian historian Manetho (3rd Century BCE) tells the story that Moses was a priest in lower Egypt who tried to replace Henotheism with Monotheism, and was either evicted from Egypt or left on his own, came to Israel, and preached Monotheism. Monolatry had not worked in Egypt because the rich could afford to worship multiple deities while the poor could not. The solution for Moses was eliminating the lower deities and worshipping just one deity to bring the rich on par with the poor in the eyes of the priesthood. Naturally, this did not go well with the priesthood and the rich classes who wanted to retain their practices. Moses was either evicted out of Egypt or left voluntarily.

Moses created the Ten Commandments, nine of which are moral behaviors taken from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, where they are cataloged as a list of 42 Negative Promises a person ascending to heaven had to make (such as I have not lied, killed, committed adultery, etc.). To the nine, Moses added the Monotheistic command of “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”, as the first. This command is open to at least two interpretations. It could mean making offerings to the Supreme Deity before other deities, with “before” indicating the time during a sacrifice. It could also mean evicting all other deities from the worship, with “before” indicating the space in a temple.

All Jewish literature before the 6th Century BCE indicates that the Jews accepted multiple deities. At best, they believed in Henotheism while practicing Monolatry. At worst, they believed in Henotheism and offered to the Supreme Deity before the lower deities. The Monotheistic movement of Moses was a failure among the Jews. At most, he succeeded in introducing Monolatry and a sequence of sacrifices. Moses was not a Prophet or Messiah at this time because what he was teaching was already in practice in Egypt from a time much before him.

Monolatry vs. Monotheism

Israel was not prosperous like neighboring civilizations such as the Egyptians and the Babylonians. Egypt was a large civilization because its land was made fertile by the river Nile. Babylonia was a large civilization because its land was made fertile by the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Jews, in comparison, were living in an infertile desert and were smaller in size. The natural question for Jews at this time was: Why are others rich and we are poor? The economic disparity seemed to imply that the Egyptians and Babylonians were blessed by their deities while the Jews were not. Since Jews practiced Monolatry, it would seem that worshipping lower deities was important for prosperity. This created a problem: (a) Jews could not sacrifice to many deities due to poverty, and (b) they could not get rich without sacrificing to many deities.

It is poverty rather than religion that led to the animosity in the Jews toward the prosperous civilizations, i.e., Egyptians and Babylonians. However, the envy of wealthier neighboring societies was given a religious interpretation: Despite our poverty, we are spiritually superior. Others worship many gods to get wealth, but we worship just one God. Therefore, others are materialistic, but we are spiritual. Their priests discriminate against the poor, but for our priests, everyone is equal. Therefore, we have a God-like vision of equality while their vision is discriminatory and hence further removed from God. This is not a unique historical phenomenon. It is true even today. Poor people see moral and spiritual flaws in the rich. Their poverty makes hedonism impossible, which they attribute to their superior character.

People remember God if they are poor and forget God if they are rich. Therefore, poverty is considered a blessing in religion, while wealth becomes a curse. But those who can’t accept their poverty as a blessing, harbor animosity toward the rich, while calling themselves spiritually superior. While desiring the wealth of the rich, they hate the rich for their wealth. Then, the blessing becomes a curse, and jealousy is mainstreamed in religion. This is the origin of the Jewish hostility toward what they eventually called Polytheistic societies, even as they were themselves the same.

The Jewish superior moral and spiritual posturing most likely led to the Babylonian attack in 586 BCE. Babylonians sacked the main temple of the Jews, exported the Jews out of Israel, and took them to Babylon. Typically, conquerors of that time attacked other lands to take their resources and use people in that land as slaves. But no resources were taken from Israel and Jews were not enslaved in Babylon. The Babylonians destroyed the temple of Jerusalem but did not build anything to replace it. They did not destroy cities in Israel, did not evict their citizens, did not occupy their lands, did not enslave their people, and did not take any other resources. During the exile in Babylon, the Jews were not converted to the Babylonian religion. Most of them continued practicing their beliefs as before. The Babylonian attack on Israel defies common sense because nobody conquers a land to give the conquered people a place in their homeland, especially if that homeland is better than the conquered land, and the conquerors are wealthier than the conquered. There is no indication of any economic, social, or political benefit to Babylonians from this invasion of Israel. Its occurrence has only one good explanation: The Babylonians hoped the Jews would live with the Babylonians, see their lifestyle and practices, learn how to be prosperous, and end their hostility.

The Jews lived in Babylonia for 47 years. Then in 539 BCE, the Persian Zoroastrian 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. This too defies common sense, unless the Jews were treated well in Babylonia, enjoyed its culture and practices, and wanted to continue living like that. Many Jews immigrated to Persia. In all these places, Jews began integrating within the new societies and assimilating their ideas, cultures, and religions.

Zoroastrianism vs. Judaism

Throughout the Babylonian exile, the Jews were soul-searching, to find the answer to why they were taken out of their homeland. The soul-searching involved asking: If Jews were pious, why did God evict them from their homeland? Zoroastrians convinced the Jews that they were evicted from Israel because they worshipped deities other than the Supreme Deity. Their acceptance of many gods, even if they worshipped one God, had angered Yahweh, and he punished them by destroying their homeland. The Zoroastrian ideas of the eternal battle between good and evil aided this belief. It convinced the Jews that their defeat was the result of amity with other gods and their worshippers.

Of course, one could still ask: Egyptians and Babylonians were already worshipping other deities; so why did Yahweh not punish them? Why did Yahweh punish the Henotheistic Jews but not the Henotheistic Babylonians? The answer was a special contract between Yahweh and Jews. Yahweh had a unique relationship with the Jews because of which he gave them Monotheism; Yahweh did not have that relation with others so he allowed them to worship false gods. But when the world ends, the Jews would go to heaven while others go to hell.

This explanation required a new theology, which Jews began crafting after their Babylonian exile. They borrowed the concept of contractual law from Babylonia, the idea of eternal duality between good and evil from Zoroastrians, along with 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. They created the idea that Jews had a special contract with God, that God had privileged them with a revelation, which was not shared with other people, giving them a unique status in humanity. But this God was also jealous, as he abhorred other gods and punished the Jews by taking away their land. This idea fitted with Zoroastrian dualism in which Polytheism is evil, Monotheism is the only good, and neglecting the good and following the evil led to the loss of Jewish land.

Now, the teachings of Moses were revived and he became a Prophet. His first commandment was interpreted to mean the exclusion of other gods. He was said to have been right all along, but Jews had chosen to disobey him and paid the price of that disobedience. A story of persecution and immigration out of Egypt was crafted to say that the Jews were always Monotheistic and that their acceptance of Henotheism and Monolatry was an aberration. The idea that God gave the Jews the land of Israel, after their immigration out of Egypt, as part of their special covenant with Yahweh, was also added at this juncture. Circumcision was called the mark of the contract between Yahweh and Jews when it was already in vogue in Egypt. The concepts of heaven and hell were not part of pre-exile Judaism. They were added post-exile, due to the influence of Zoroastrians. It was necessary to explain why Jews were superior even if they were poorer: (a) God made Jews poor right now but would reward them with eternal heaven later, and (b) God made others rich right now but would punish them with eternal hell later. Since present life is temporary while heaven and hell are eternal, the Jews had the better bargain, while God had deceived everyone else.

Jews don’t try to convert others because they believe that everyone else is going to hell while they are going to heaven, and they don’t want to share their heaven with others. This exclusivism is innate in Zoroastrianism too, which doesn’t convert others. That doesn’t mean they respect other religions. They believe that everyone else is going to hell, they alone are going to heaven, but they don’t want to overcrowd their heaven by conversion. They want to keep heaven to themselves. Due to the absence of conversion, Jews and Zoroastrians are misunderstood to be inclusive, especially by those who do not convert others due to their inclusivity. They are both exclusive but in a weird sense in which God is not universally truthful or compassionate. Rather, God blesses some people with the truth, sending the rest to eternal hell.

The net result of the post-exile theology was that Jews became even more disdainful toward other civilizations. Others were not just rich and immoral. They were the people whom Yahweh had cursed to eternal hell by not having a contract with them. Babylonians who had earlier hosted the Jews for decades became not just enemies but also evil. Even Egyptians became evil because they had supposedly evicted the Jews due to their Monotheistic beliefs. Thus began the practice of demonizing all those who differ from you, by calling them the Axis of Evil.

Liberalism vs. Conservatism

Initially, all Jews did not share this view. For many, a Monotheistic deity was the supreme but not the only deity. Return to Jerusalem, after the Babylonian exile, created a schism between conservatives (hating Polytheists while advocating Monotheism) and liberals (accepting Henotheism while practicing Monolatry). Dozens of deities were worshipped in Canaan, with one supreme deity. Cananites were Henotheistic, not Monotheistic. The residents of Jerusalem had been exiled but those of the rest of Canaan had not been. The exiled population subscribed to exclusivism while the non-exiled population did not. The liberal-conservative schism thus extended to that between Jerusalem and the rest of Canaan. The conservatives slowly began dominating the liberals. It became Jerusalem dominating Canaan. As the conservative Jews hardened their stance against liberal or Canaanite Henotheism, their hostility against the deities of neighboring societies became even worse than before. Jews now crafted stories of massacring men, women, and children in Canaan, presently called the Canaanite Massacre.

Eventually, Alexander invaded Jerusalem and forced Polytheistic practices on Jews. The liberal Jews felt relieved while the conservatives hardened their stances. However, the Greek empire did not last long. As it collapsed, the liberal relief was short-lived, and the conservatives returned to prominence. As the conservatives dominated the Jewish community, to intimidate the liberals into submission, they began crafting harsher versions of conservative theology in which the Monotheistic God became more ruthless, merciless, and barbaric toward those who did not worship him exclusively. The struggle between liberals and conservatives continued for quite some time, until the emergence of the Hasmodian Dynasty in 160 BCE, after the complete overthrow of liberals by the conservatives. Under the Hasmodian rule, the violent Monotheistic canon was standardized into what we presently call the Old Testament. Before the Hasmodian Dynasty, Jews used coins with images of Athena and an owl, indicating their acceptance of pagan deities. Since coins were minted by the rulers, it meant the acceptance of other deities at the highest levels of power within Jewish society. After that, coins only had text. The rejection of pagan images and their replacement with text became the new iconoclasm within Judaism. All religions that made images of God became evil.

At this time, the Romans were the prominent dynasty. They made images of their deities and placed them in temples. The Jewish iconoclasm angered the Romans. Fearing their hateful rhetoric would spread, the Roman army attacked Israel, conquered their land, and defeated the Hasmodian Dynasty, in 63 BCE. With the defeat of the conservative ideology, and the reinforcement of pagan practices by Romans, the Jews began talking about the end of the world, which they had imbibed from Zoroastrians. This end was expected to start with the arrival of a savior messiah, who would fight the Romans, restore the Jewish kingdom, and then rule over the world for a thousand (or so) years.

Original vs. Later Christianity

At this time, Jesus was born and began teaching the love of God and loving their neighbors as themselves. His teachings were radically opposed to the Jewish ideas of fearing God and hating the neighbors. There was no battle between good and evil. As his teachings spread, some Jews started talking about Jesus as the savior-messiah who was going to lead a revolt against the Romans. Obviously, the Romans took it as a threat against their rule. And so, Jesus was crucified. But his brother James continued the peaceful message of Jesus. Nag Hammadi Texts and Dead Sea Scrolls, the texts closest to the teachings of Jesus, show how different they were from Judaism and Christianity.

Divinity is a masculine-feminine couple, the feminine is the thought of the masculine, impregnated by his gaze of pure light.
Heaven is hierarchical and progressive, with different realms characterized by the three traits of Perfection, Peace, and Sophia.
The material body is described as a vessel separate from the spirit and salvation is called transcending the body.
Resurrection into eternal life involves the reestablishment of the eternal body, which exists at present but is invisible.
Those who don’t attain eternal life are reborn on Earth overpowered by their forgetfulness, until they attain Gnosis.
Followers are required to abstain from meat and alcohol, take daily baths, and avoid contact with corpses and graves.
Followers are exhorted to stop focusing on the external world and begin focusing on the true nature of the self.
Jesus is described as a Gnostic, who never talked about Yahweh, but referred to God as Abba or Divine Father.
The crucifixion of Jesus is described, but after that, he went to heaven instead of being resurrected on Earth.

Then Paul, a Roman who earlier persecuted the Christians despite them being different than other Jews, hijacked the crucifixion of Jesus to create Christianity. The concepts of rebirth, Gnosis, divine couple, body-spirit separation, the hierarchy in heaven, the nature of eternal life, defocusing from the outer world, renouncing meat and alcohol, etc., were abandoned while the resurrection of Jesus became the fulcrum of Christianity. The ideas of eternal battle between good and evil were borrowed from Judaism. The atrocious images of God’s punishment were retained. Loving your neighbor meant next-door neighbor not neighboring societies and/or civilizations. To marginalize James and the true followers of Jesus, Paul blamed the death of Jesus on the Jews and wove the Roman hatred of Jews as antisemitism in Christianity.

Paul and other writers then began attributing a class of miracles to Jesus, such as calming the seas, converting water to wine, and feeding bread to thousands, that were associated with Greco-Roman deities, transforming him into God. They called their writing divinely inspired by the Holy Ghost, even as they significantly deviated from the original teachings of Jesus. The resulting antipathy between the followers of Jesus and Romans led to a 7-year war, at the end of which Jerusalem (and its Jewish temple) were destroyed in 73 CE. For centuries afterward, the Christians persecuted all Jews as anti-Christians, leading to mass incarceration and death of Jews during WWII.

Violent vs. Non-Violent Ideas

At present, Jews talk of a history of oppression, beginning with their persecution and immigration out of Egypt. The original persecution and immigration story is fabricated. Despite their loathing of the Babylonians, they were treated well in Babylonia. And yet, due to Zoroastrian influence, Jews increased their hostility toward their neighbors, detesting Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, and Roman deities. Naturally, they were invaded by armies whose deities they despised. But with every new invasion, Jews crafted more violent stories of their Monotheistic God retaliating against their aggressors, calling themselves the persecuted people, but never accepting the role their animosity toward other societies might have played in their suffering. As their religious books accumulated more violent stories, they invited more violence on themselves. However, they attributed that violence to others hating their Monotheistic beliefs rather than their intolerance of and hostility toward others. As these stories were enshrined in Jewish scripture, people reading them began hating all Henotheistic societies.

These stories were picked up by Christianity and Islam and became Abrahamic Monotheism. One key novelty in Christianity and Islam is that their Monotheistic contract is extended to the whole of humanity, not just themselves. God demands that others be forcibly converted or killed or taxed, their lands be possessed and ruled by the followers of the Monotheistic God. Their ideas are rooted in progressively vengeful Jewish stories, created from a cycle of growing hatred, retaliation, and counterretaliation. The cycle of hate and violence never ends. Instead, they imagine an apocalyptic end of the world through this violence in which peace appears only after one Monotheism has wiped out every other religion. They read vitriolic stories of their Monotheistic God retaliating against other religions and believe them to be true.

Zoroastrian Monotheism is not so violent because even as the Zoroastrians despised the Indus Valley Civilization, the latter did not attack the former. Due to the absence of a response from the Indus Valley Civilization, Zoroastrian history does not have a cycle of growing hate and retaliation. That cycle was created when Jews detested Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans and were attacked. The peaceful nature of Zoroastrianism today is the result of the Indus Valley Civilization not attacking the Zoroastrians despite their antagonism.

The other key difference between these Monotheisms 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 Henotheistic 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.

Monotheism vs. Satanism

As discussed above, Monotheism began as the worship of Asuras which is exclusivist. If it remains an ideology, it creates wars for global domination, destruction of other religions and societies, and bringing them to one exclusivist religion. However, Asura worship can also be extended to blood rituals including animal, child, and female sacrifices. Asuras are both sadistic and masochistic. Their sense of pleasure is heightened through pain. So, their rituals can include perverted forms of sexuality that involve torturing and being tortured. Experts on Satanism now broadly agree that it was co-created with Monotheism, and all present Satanic cults originated in ancient Persia.

Asuras are not a monolithic category. Some like to see order in the world under their control, enjoying power over others, and using oppressive means to destroy anyone who steps out of the line, to restore order. Some others like to see a rise in consumption and indulgence, even if that means destruction of order. Yet others enjoy destruction, conflict, and war for the sake of it, and relish the misery that follows. These are broad categories based on the three qualities of sattva, rajas, and tamas. Satanism has been influenced by the two main sects within Tantra, called the left-hand and the right-hand paths. The right-hand path is sattvic and the left-hand path is rajasic and tamasic. The followers of the former want exclusive power and control over the world to create precise, mechanistic, and repeatable order. The followers of the latter want to do the forbidden, illegal, and immoral; breaking the norms, customs, and taboos gives them exhilaration.

Industrialization is the creation of the right-hand Satanic path under which society is modeled as a machine, each individual is a cog in a machine, expected to follow a narrow trajectory from birth to death, working according to strict rules and norms, fulfilling the purpose of the machine, namely, power and control in the hands of the machine’s owner. Under this path, every child is programmed how to think, behave, and live from childhood. This is what an industrial society considers mainstream culture. Then there are two left-hand Satanic paths. First is the counterculture of sex, drugs, rock and roll, rebelling against parents and teachers, not being part of the industrial machine, living on the fringes of society in filth and poverty, and surviving through barely legal means. Second is the anticulture of accumulating wealth through theft, murder, prostitution, trafficking, gambling, extortion, smuggling, and terror. All these are Satanic and deaden the soul more and more.

In every pagan religion, there were deities of the underworld, which Satanists have coopted at present in their rituals and practices. While Monotheism opposes these Satanists, it is itself the exclusivist ideology of Asuras. Hence, Monotheism and Satanism often mix in the upper echelons of modern society in the pursuit of exclusive power and control over the world. They pervade numerous secret societies that are using their power and wealth not just for personal pleasure, but also as a way to gain more power and pleasure through demons. Satanists are empty vessels that need an endless supply of power, pleasure, and validation. Their emptiness drives them toward Satanism. The Vedic texts describe the present age as Kali-Yuga in which the ideology of Devas is destroyed and that of the Asuras is perpetrated.

Singularism vs. Pluralism

In contrast to the exclusivism of Monotheism, India has been pluralistic. It gave birth to 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.

However, the very nature of an Asura religion is destroying others and establishing their exclusive control. They have been trying to destroy the pluralistic culture rooted in choice and consequence in India. The nationalistic rhetoric in India is a response to these 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, and 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 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. Hinduism

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 misrepresented 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 misrepresentation 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 a Supreme Being in some rudimentary form, Indian religions—such as Advaita, Buddhism, and Jainism—rejected such a deity entirely 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. The hallmark of all these traditional religions is harmony between opposites, sometimes as two sides of the same coin, sometimes as a balance between opposites, sometimes as upper and lower, and sometimes as becoming and being. All these are accepted within the Vedic tradition in different contexts. The root of the problem is dualism being elevated to a universal principle resulting in mutual conflict, prophesized to end with one side defeating the other. The ultimate Vedic principle is non-duality in which opposites exist in harmony. The ultimate principle in Monotheism is opposites in conflict which ends with the destruction of one opposite. The ultimate principle in godless religions is a conflict between opposites which ends when the opposites merge, ending all variety.

Cyclical vs. Linear Time

At present, it is hard to get any agreement between any two religions because the coexistence of opposites in various forms is rejected. 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. They don’t have to clash if they are contextualized to different uses (like water and fire are useful in different contexts). But under the desire to replace the opposites with one side of the opposite, religion creates wars. Then to put an end to these wars, godless religions advocate the dissolution of opposites and the destruction of variety. The historians of religion don’t have a good understanding of how exclusivist and godless religions emerged from the religion of coexisting opposites. They actually believe that these exclusivist religions are correct because their worldview is Monotheistic. They cannot diagnose the source of the present problems. All exclusivist 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. Then comes the godless religion that talks about the destruction of variety, the amalgamation of opposites, and eventually their merger.

To overcome the problems of Monotheistic religions, Hegel conjured a battle between good and evil as the clash between thesis and antithesis which culminates in a synthesis. He believed that this would be a substitute for the Monotheistic ideas of the battle between good and evil in which the good destroys the evil. It was an attempt to combine the idea of history in Monotheistic religions with that in the godless religions. His models then created the Marxist ideas of a clash between classes, genders, religions, and cultures, forecasted to merge them into a classless, genderless, atheistic, and cultureless society. However, that has been a failure. 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 Vedic description of history, in the age of Kali-Yuga, synthesis divides into thesis and antithesis to create a war between opposites that destroys both sides and ushers in nihilism. In Satya-Yuga, the thesis and antithesis unite as coexisting opposites, ending 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 uniting 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 battle between good and evil, culminating in the defeat of the evil at the hands of the good is ingrained in people, as the Eschatological doctrines of Monotheisms, they impose their will on others and enter into wars, which doesn’t end the world although it ends the warring sides. The ideology that survives does not impose its will on others and doesn’t allow others to impose their will on itself.