Vasu Murti's blog

In a letter to Upendra dasa in Fiji, dated October 26, 1970, from Amritsar, India, Srila Prabhupada wrote:

"Regarding worship of demigods, the whole Hindu society is absorbed in this business, so unless our preaching work is very vigorous it is very difficult to stop them."

When I speak of Hindu "polytheism", I refer not to demigod worship, but to our doctrine of vishnu-tattva expansions.

A friend in college, Victor, once said he thought God was "lonely," because He is a solitary and omnipresent Being who has no equal—because there's only one God, right? Victor said God may create humans for companionship, but this is similar to an old lady with cats as pets. 

Victor was obviously thinking in terms of the Judaic (monotheistic) conception of God. As Vaishnavas, we recognize that God can expand Himself into other Supreme Beings, yet still remain one: e.g.—Radha-Krishna, Krishna-Balarama, Nitai-Gauranga, the Pancha-tattva, etc.

The closest concept to our doctrine of God expanding Himself into other Supreme Beings, yet still remaining one (vishnu-tattva expansions) is the doctrine of the Trinity, which Jews and Muslims reject as disguised polytheism.

In their 1990 book, Om Shalom: Judaism and Krishna Consciousness, Rabbi Jacob Shimmel even tells Satyaraja dasa (Steven Rosen) that because of belief in a Trinity, Christianity cannot be considered a truly monotheistic religion.

I wonder what Rabbi Shimmel would think of the loving exchanges between Radha and Krishna! Dr. Klaus Klostermaier says that it is in the doctrine of the Trinity that the closest parallel to Radha and Krishna can be found.

There's an old joke: "How many Christians does it take to change a light bulb?" Answer: "Three, but they're really one."

Back in 1988, a Jewish girl who had never visited a Krishna temple, asked me about the identity of Radha. What should I have told her? That we worship two Gods on our altar, and these two are "really one" ?

Upon his first visit to a Krishna temple, and seeing Sri Sri Radha-Giridhari, my friend Aaron asked me, "Why do you have two Gods on your altar?" 

I pointedly asked my friend Prana-Krishna dasa (Dr. Frank Morales), a disciple of Srila Prabhupada's godbrother Sridhara Majaraja, whether we (Vaishnavas) are worshipping one God or two Gods. He replied, "We are worshipping one God divided into two persons, just as the Christians are worshipping one God divided into three persons."

When I told Prana-Krishna dasa that I had asked the very same question to my friend Nityananda dasa (Bill Hiler) and couldn't get a straight answer from him, Prana-Krishna dasa replied, "That's because Prabhupada didn't focus on things like that." 

I don't know if Christians would ever refer to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as "Them" or "Their Lordships" (i.e., in the plural) as we do with the Deities (again, note the plural!), but Srila Prabhupada did  favorably compare the doctrine of the Trinity with our doctrine of the Three Aspects of God: Bhagavan, Paramatma, and Brahman. 

Muslims also regard the Catholic veneration of saints as idolatry and polytheism, and on the altars of ISKCON temples you see pictures of Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Bhaktisiddhanta Thakura, the six Goswamis, the Tulasi plant, etc.

I don't know how else to describe it, except to say that we're worshipping saints—these are all jiva-tattva living entities. Jews and Muslims consider it blasphemy to worship anyone other than God. 

For this reason, guru worship is also foreign to Judaism and Islam. No one worships Moses or Mohammed the way we worship Srila Prabhupada—as an intermediary between God and man, who suffers for the sins of his disciples, etc.—the Christian worship of Jesus is analogous here.

In his anti-cult book, Where is Joey? Lost Among the Hare Krishnas, for example, author Morris Yanoff, a retired (secular) Jewish schoolteacher is disturbed at the thought of his grandson Joey worshipping another human being (Srila Prabhupada). A friend tells him, "If Jesus Christ were to return, don't you think a lot of people would be bowing down?"

Madhavendra Puri dasa (Steve Bernath) told me that in 1986, when devotees held a Jewish - Vaishnava interfaith conference, none of the rabbis present would take prasadam—because it was food offered to idols. On the other hand, Catholic clergy have defended devotees against charges of idolatry from Christian fundamentalists, and some of them have even compared prasadam favorably to the Eucharist. 

Dr. A.L. Basham, author of The Wonder That was India, says: 

"...the old-fashioned type of missionary was quite certain that Hinduism was the work of the Devil, and hence that it was very evil. It did all the things which Christianity, especially Protestant Christianity, said you shouldn't do, such as image worship and the worship of many gods. 

"Catholics were always much more tolerant of this sort of thing. Though he may be theoretically monotheistic, the simple Catholic will, to all intents and purposes, pray to quite a wide range of divinities, including the Blessed Virgin Mary and various important saints, often in the form of physical images. 

"But Protestant Christianity was founded on the basis that there is one God only, divided into three persons, and that worship of images is sinful. To the Protestant of the old-fashioned kind, this was a terrible thing to do, almost as bad as it was to a traditional Jew or Muslim. So the missionaries, I think, are largely responsible for the polytheism stereotype and the 'caste-ridden' society stereotype." 

Like Christians, Vaishnavas believe that souls in this world have fallen from grace, that this world is transitory, and that there is an inner conflict between one's carnal and spiritual natures. In ISKCON we find priests and monks with vows, the worship of consecrated images, belief in the incarnations of God, the veneration of saints and different divinities, the chanting of the holy names on beads of prayer, two monastic orders (bramachari and sannyas), sacramental food, the use of holy water, candles, incense and ash, etc. 

Mahavishnu Swami recalls Srila Prabhupada at one time recommending devotees to investigate the structure and principles of the Roman Catholic Church as far as its applicability in ISKCON. However, Yasodanandana dasa relates an exchange between Srila Prabhupada and Tamal Krishna Goswami in Vrindavana, 1977: "Don't turn my ISKCON into another Gaudiya Math or the Catholic Church," instructed Srila Prabhupada. "Don't worry, Srila Prabhupada, we won't," replied Tamal Krishna Goswami. 

Srila Prabhupada would not have made either of these statements if he were not aware of the already existing similarities between these two great religious traditions. 

Again, when I speak of Hindu "polytheism," I am not referring to demigod worship, although Srila Prabhupada did state (as recorded by Satsvarupa Maharaja in the Lilamrita) that demigod worship is higher than Christianity (and presumably Judaism and Islam as well), because if one is born within the Vedic system, he or she is more likely to become a worshipper of Lord Vishnu (i.e., a Vaishnava) than if one is born outside the Vedic system where knowledge of God is lacking.