We cannot consider the human mind as an idiot, which it thinks erratically, without any meaning. It has a system of its own. It is acting as an indication of a great mystery and perfection existing beyond itself. The mental operations are indica­tions, and therefore they have a system of their own. The mind, as they say, is holistic in its operation. It is a Gestalt. It is not a chaotic slip-shod action of the thoughts of the mind. The mind also is a great organisation; it is a whole by itself.

This psychological whole suggests the existence of a metaphysical cosmic Absolute whole, in henological argument. There are many other arguments brought forward by Indian Nyaya philosophers, like Bodayana Acharya, into which details I am not entering now. The idea behind it is that the consciousness of a Beyond is the reason for the development of religious consciousness.

Generally, in conditions of life which we usually call primitive, a wonder behind the operations of nature became the impulse for adoration of that thing which is the cause of wonder. Why are the stars moving in this manner? Why is there rainfall? Why is there summer? Why is there winter? Why is there wind? How is it that the sun rises in this manner? As every effect is considered to be having a cause behind it, the mind cannot free itself from the necessity to think in terms of causes. Every event has a cause behind it. As the events are beautifully organised, the causes behind these beautiful organisations should be intelligent existences. These are the original concepts of the gods behind nature.

The Rig Veda Samhita in its prayers, right from the beginning to the end, seems to be approving this phenomenon in religious history that the senses, which are the main perceptual apparatus in the human being, see a vastness spread out before them; and because this vastness, which is multitudinous in nature, requires an explanation in terms of something that is behind this multitudinousness, in the beginning we may concede that every item of the multitude has a divinity behind it. This is why sometimes it is believed that there are many gods in heaven. We call it heaven because it is beyond natural phenomena. The cause should be beyond the effect; so, the cause is transcendent. We may consider the cause of natural phenomena as a heavenly operation - a kingdom of gods. Many things are there, so there must be many gods behind each one. This is supposed to be the beginning of religious awareness, if we are to believe the findings of the historical researchers in the rising of religious consciousness. We cannot say that this is the only way of looking at things; this is one way, the empirical way, the inductive method, which modern historians of religious philosophy employ.

The Rig Veda has all the features of this kind of perception of the consequences of the divine operations behind everything. But the quest did not end here. The inquisitiveness of the human mind is so deep that it can never be satisfied. It goes on asking questions more and more, again and again, “How is it? Why is it like that?”

If there are many different divinities, an angel operating behind everything, all which is endless in its variety, then what would be the relationship of these divinities? They will be like scattered existences, with no concourse or relationship among them. A higher advance in the consciousness of these many gods felt like accepting that these divinities must be working in groups. Just as a single human being cannot achieve anything, and for that reason people join organisations, societies, institutions, etc., a single god cannot be an explanation of any phenomenon. There must be group gods - Vishva Devas, as they are called in the Rig Veda Samhita. Many gods must be in collaboration, as a group, or a society of gods. Here also, the quest did not end.

While there can be many groups, what is the relationship of one group with another group? In a national setup, if there are many villages and commissionaries operating independently, there would be no unity in the concept of the nation. So, the districts and the commissionaries and villages, etc., have to be brought together in a larger concept of the national administration. So, this group psychology, or the idea of group gods, was not found satisfying, finally. We may say that it took centuries for the human mind to go on advancing itself gradually, stage by stage. It is not that every day a new thought comes. For centuries, one thought may continue; after some centuries, another thought in an advance form begins.

All right; we can accept that there is a unity among the community of gods, also. Indra is the ruler of the gods, we say in mythological epics. Why should there be a ruler for the gods? Are the gods not self-complete in themselves? Are the collectors and the commissioners and state secretaries not complete in themselves? Maybe they are complete, but they require coordination from a higher authority, which is the concept of the constitution of the government. It is the central pivotal determining factor. Many gods, group gods, also cannot satisfy. The government can be only one; we cannot have two governments.

Even today, when there are many governments in the world, people are not satisfied. There are statesmen who are dreaming of what may be called a world government. Why should we have many governments? If there is a world government, there would be no conflict of any kind. Everything will be interrelated beautifully, harmonised perfectly. Maybe there would be no wars and conflicts of any kind, and all contention will cease. This is the hope of humanity, as a world government that sometimes people call ramaraiva in our Indian administrative and royal tradition.

The mind is not satisfied with anything. It wants to be complete in every way, and we cannot have two complete things sitting together, like two great men, because two great men cannot join unless there is a third thing greater than these two great men. This brought the religious quest to the concept of monotheism - there is one god. One God rules the whole universe. He is the creator, the preserver, the dissolver, and the destroyer. We in India, in Hindu circles, call it Brahma-Vishnu-Siva. Every religion conceives God as threefold in functions. There is a perpetual creation going on, and a continual sustenance and maintenance in perfect order of what is created, and there is a dissolution taking place.

Every minute, there are new productions of cellular activity in our body. New cells are formed; creation takes place every minute in our body, and they are main­tained in a perfect order, in an anabolic fashion, constructively, and they have to transform themselves into a newer setup of greater advancement in the structure of personality. There is a catabolic activity taking place, because otherwise we will have the same cells always, and will not grow at all. So, Brahma-Vishnu-Siva are operat­ing not as today one thing, tomorrow another thing, and the third day a third thing. The three gods act immediately, simultaneously, if we can conceive such a possibility.

Every moment is creation, preservation and destruction. Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva are one god only, finally - three functions of the one God. Monotheism is the doctrine of one God. The great teachers of monotheism in India are Acharya Ramanuja, Madhva, Vallabha, Nimbarka, Sri Krishna Chaitanya Deva, and the great protagonists of Shaiva Agamas, and even Shakta Agamas. There is one divinity finally, they say. Still, there is no full satisfaction. God has created the world; all right, we accept it. But is God inside the world or outside the world?

The Nyaya and the Vaishesika philosophers in the East have considered that God is extra-cosmic. This is a concept which goes by the name of ‘beism’ - a God who is above the world, unconnected with the world, transcendent to the world, and therefore, extra-cosmic. This is the Nyaya and the Vaishesika. Even the Ishvara propounded by Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras is of that nature. He is only an apparatus. He does not enter the world. He operates the world from a distance, like a carpenter making a table or chair, or a potter fashioning mud pots.

The relationship between God and the world is not clear. Many thought God is inside the world - the whole world is God only. Western philosophers dubbed this kind of thought as pantheism, which means ‘all God’. The whole world and creation is God only. But this is considered as a foolish notion and not acceptable finally. We cannot say that God has become the world, as milk becomes curd or yoghurt, because curd cannot become milk once again; so if God has exhausted Himself in this world, there would be no such thing as reaching God afterwards, because He has exhausted Himself in the world itself. So, great thinkers later on coined another word called ‘pantheism’. God may be immanent, but He is not pantheistic; He is also transcendent, at the same time.

Difficult is this concept. How would God be inside, as well as not inside? Here philosophical argument fails; reason cannot go further. It says, “Thus far, and no further.” When intellect fails, true religion begins. Religious perception, or religious awareness, is an intuitive process. It is a self-identical recognition of Being-as-such, or God knowing God. The theistic concept also brought these problems. When did God create the world? This question follows when we accept that God created the world, because creation is a temporal process. Space and time are necessary in order that the world may be created. So, God must have created space and time first, before creating the world.

But space and time also are products in the process of creation. And so, how do we explain creation? What is the substance out of which the world is made? Call it space-time, or whatever - this substance out of which God has created the world should have a relationship to God. This relationship is inexplicable because if we say He has fashioned a thing out of a material, like the Prakriti of the Samkhya, then there would be no connection between the Creator and the created. Samkhya tells us that Purusha has no connection with Prakriti. If that is the case, people who are involved in Prakriti cannot contact Purusha.

Theism has many difficulties such as the perception of evil in the world, and chaos, and ugliness. Everything is not beautiful. Who created evil? If God created the world, He must have created evil, also. He created sin - but this is abhorrent; we cannot say that. No sensible person will say God created evil and sin.

Then, when God created the world, He did not create sin. Who created it? No individual can be called the creator of sin, because sin is the aberration from the Universal Whole, and unless the aberration has already taken place, the individual cannot come into existence. Therefore, we cannot say it exists in the individual. It cannot exist in God, also. These problems arise due to the theistic conception of God.

Beyond that is the monistic conception, the conception of the Absolute. In the West, Hegel represents this mode of thinking, and in the East, to some extent, the Upanishads and principally Acharya Sankara give a presentation of this. The whole thing ends in monism, the acceptance of an indescribable, incomprehensible, astounding Absolute. Religion leads to this final conclusion in its aspiration for perfection. Since the Absolute cannot be outside the seeker of the Absolute, the very consciousness of the Absolute is a kind of freedom attained. “Knowing Brahman is being Brahman,” says the Upanishads. To know the Absolute is to be the Absolute.

Minds which are impure, which cannot free themselves from prejudices of various types inseparable from human nature, cannot conceive the Absolute. Therefore, a great many prescriptions of disciplinary processes have been prescribed before entering into the argument of God as the Absolute. They are called yamas and niyamas. Here we are faced with a danger of touching an impossible thing, if the means of this touch or contact is not strong enough. That is why the seeking soul, which is the seeker of the Absolute, is not the mind that seeks it. The Absolute planted in the human individual, as the Atman, seeks it. That is why they say, “the Atman is Brahman”, “the Self is the Absolute”. Here religion reaches its climax in an astounding manner. If it is pursued vigilantly, with sincerity and purity of heart, it will end this turmoil of transmigratory existence, and you will attain what is called final liberation, or Moksha.