Page 19 - Hinduism
P. 19

critics of Hinduism is that it is pantheistic because it says that Brahman pervades all beings and is the same as a stone, dog or dog-eater. That view is wrong because Hinduism says that God is in all beings as their inner ruler and is not identical with all beings. Inanimate things are different from Jīvas and God is different from both, and He enters into them with a view to be in intimate contact with them. As the Lord of love dwells in the heart of the Jīva or man called the lotus-heart of hṛdayakamala, the human body is extolled as the very temple of God or Brahmapuri. As the seat of Divinity, it is held sacred, not defiled as a filthy place of sin. God is love and He is in the Jīva in order that the Jīva may be made Godly.
Avatāra
The theory of Brahman as redeemer is clearly brought out by that Avatāra or Divine incarnation as revealed in the two Itihāsas, the Rāmāyana and the Mahābhārata. It is fully revealed by the author of the Bhagavad-gitā who is the highest incarnation of God. As the Lord himself says in the Gitā, He incarnates into history when virtue or dharma declines and is threatened with destruction by adharma or vice. He comes down with a unique form of his own to punish the evil-doer and reward the virtuous man and restore the moral order of the world. The real motive of the incarnation is moral and religious as it consists in redeeming even the evil-doer from his ways of wickedness or sin and 19
 































































































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