Misunderstood Interpretations in Hinduism

Devotee: What are the various main misunderstood interpretations in Hinduism?

Shri Swami replied: 1) Unimaginable God:

a) This is a misunderstanding in all the religions including Hinduism. This space, which is subtle energy, is infinite. This infinity is not the absolute inherent characteristic of the space. It means that the space is not infinite by itself. The space is generated from the unimaginable God. If you reach the boundary of the space, you touch God like touching the soil on reaching the boundary of the ocean. You cannot touch or imagine God. This is the reason for the infinity of the space. Thus space is relatively infinite.

b) Take the case of a stream of smoke coming from the fire. If you travel in the smoke, after some time, you can touch the fire. The stream of the smoke is finite because on reaching the boundary of the smoke, you can touch the imaginable fire. On contrary, you cannot reach the boundary of smoke (space) if the fire (God) is unimaginable. Hence, the finite or infinity of the space depends on the imaginable or unimaginable nature of God respectively. The infinity of space is not its characteristic, but, is due to the unimaginable nature of its generator, the God.

c) The constant expansion of the universe also speaks the same. As you travel along the universe, it expands so that you cannot reach its boundary and touch the unimaginable God. By this, the constant expansion is again relatively justified i.e., with respect to the unimaginable God. The constant expansion is not the absolute phenomenon of the universe, but, it is a relative phenomenon since the aim of the expansion is only to see that you should not touch the boundary of universe or God.

d) The space cannot exist in God since the product(space) cannot exist in its cause(God) before its generation. If the space exists in God even before its generation, it means the generation of space becomes meaningless. Anything is said to be generated, if it is absent before its generation. This means that the space and hence, the spatial dimensions do not exist in God and hence can never be imagined. The unimaginable nature is, thus, justified.

e) The unimaginable God proves Himself by performing unimaginable events called miracles. You cannot discard a genuine miracle as magic. Even if you discard miracles, the infinite space with unimaginable boundary stands as the solid proof for the concept of existence of unimaginable nature indicating the existence of unimaginable God.

f) The bending of space along the boundary of object proves that space is something (subtle energy) and not nothing. Hence, generation of space becomes a logical concept since something can be only generated and nothing cannot be generated.

2) Gayatri:

a) Gayatri means the divine song on God, which brings the grace of God for our protection. This is the root meaning.

b)Gayatri is not a Vedic hymn, which is composed in a specific meter called Gayatri. The meter is named as Gayatri without its application of root meaning. Hence, the Vedic hymn in the Gayatri meter is not at all Gayatri.

c) Any devotional song on God is Gayatri and every human being is eligible to sing a devotional song on God.

d) Hence, it is foolish to say that Gayatri is prohibited to certain castes.

e) It is doubly foolish to say that the ladies are not eligible for Gayatri. In fact, the ladies with their sweet voice singing devotional songs are really eligible for the real Gayatri.

f)The misunderstood Vedic hymn called as Gayatri, prescribed only to certain castes brought splits in Hinduism.

g)No injustice was done to any caste from the beginning of the creation since every human being is eligible for the real Gayatri. The initiation of Vedic hymn called Gayatri through holy thread (Upanayanam) is not necessary to all the human beings because all the human beings are eligible for the real Gayatri.