What is God? Is there a God? Do we have to have a God? What if there is no God? What will a God-less world be like? Ask these questions to an Abrahamic and you have just committed blasphemy. In Sanatan Dharma (Dharmic traditions), these questions are asked daily, sometimes several times a day depending on how the world is treating you. Why is it not blasphemous for the Dharmics? Why are throats not being slit? Why is there no witch-hunt? Are the Dharmics too meek, too tolerant, or do they have a highly developed sense of respect for each other?
The building blocks of Dharmics is a system that is belief-less. The foundations of Dharmics is a set of philosophies. Two amongst them are the Sankhya (संख्या) and the Yoga (योग) schools.
Swami Vivekananda explains that according to Sankhya philosophy there is no God. “There cannot be any God of this universe, because if there were He must be a soul, and a soul must be one of two things, either bound or free. How can the soul that is bound by nature, or controlled by nature, create? It is itself a slave. On the other hand, what business has the soul that is free to create and manipulate all these things? It has no desires, so cannot have any need to create.” Sankhya also sees no need for a God, and the gods spoken of in Vedas are nothing but free and near-perfect souls whose minds have merged with nature.
Yoga and Sankhya thoughts differ a bit on this point of God-ness. Yogis acknowledge the Sankhya idea of near-perfect soul that is one with nature. But Yogis also see a God beyond just a near-perfect soul whose mind is one with nature. Yogis, however, don’t think or find it necessary to ascribe “creation to this God”. A God that creates is a an early Vedic concept. In Vedas, Ishvara is the creator of the universe, but it is not so for the Yogis. As Vivekanand says, “The Yogis and Sankhya both avoid the question of creation.” Just as there is no boundary of space or time, a Yogi sees no boundary for knowledge. “The Yogis call that unlimited knowledge God”.
धार्मिक छवियाँ 