An update on the Journal, and a glimpse into the ever-changing heavens of Indian belief
A note to subscribers, and a brief word on henotheistic Hinduisms
Two months ago, my weekly reign on Substack came to a sad conclusion — sad for me, anyhow. Over an eight-month period I produced 38 posts. It was a properly functioning journal, with ideas building on ideas and growing in different directions, offering intellectual rewards to those who followed along. I wrote about why I had to pause in “Debilitating, but not fatal,” my father’s health being a primary reason; I’ve also struggled some this summer with my own health issues.
Everything’s going much better now. My father has recovered a good deal of his self-sufficiency, and the DBS (deep brain stimulator), for whatever it’s worth, has helped him avoid falling altogether, whereas previously he used to fall a lot. With my own health, I’ve found an equilibrium that seems to be working sufficiently for now. I have space and time to write again.
Getting back in the saddle, however, has proved creatively difficult. I was able to put out my Barbie article a month ago, for which I’m very grateful. The response from readers quickly surpassed anything in the journal before — but the piece was unusually hard to write. My notion since then has been to strive for a monthly schedule of postings. My inspiration for the next article was to write a concise political treatise, something that can be used like a spiritual survival guide to the election year chaos descending upon us. I’ve been working on it; it’s good material. But I haven’t been able to finish it on time. When I left off journaling in July, I said I wasn’t at a loss for ideas to write about, and I’m not. The problem is the ones that I’m perceiving as ready to write about are all so big. I don’t know if this is just an ambition problem or not.
When I lived in the monastery, the basic model of life was waking up in the morning, going to church for a few hours, and then finding out in trapeza what I was going to do that day. I regretfully don’t have the same structure of obedience in my life, but I am, in what I do, aching for the same pattern. Mornings I pray; I pray that God’s will be done. Then I try to perceive what it is I’m supposed to do. Often enough, it’s to write. But when I get that chance, what do I write? If I pick something out of season, it doesn’t go well creatively. What ideas are ripe?
For the last two years it hasn’t been screenwriting, which I regret. I have a partly written script I would love to complete. Its genesis predates the two scripts that I have completed; it’s the idea that got me started screenwriting in the first place, and its completion would require on my part a self-emptying love of neighbor. It would be something I wrote more for others than for myself. I yearn for that. Where I’m living right now, too — it’s the ideal physical environment for the project. But I pray God’s will be done, and no one’s asking me to write any more screenplays. I have to write the sequel to my big Symbolic World article “The Cosmic Chiasmus.” Having written about the fivefold structure in Scripture, and not about the triad or the octave, is like if Matthieu Pageau wrote The Language of Creation but only covered space symbolism and left out time and meta-space. It’s kind of a moral necessity to finish that. And I’m excited to do so! I have an outline of eight articles that I think’ll do the job. Yeah, and the chief editor of the Symbolic World website (me, but in a different role) is shying away and suggesting that sounds more like a book. So I guess I got a book to write. Lord have mercy, it feels so long since I have been immersed like that in Scriptural contemplation. That would be amazing. But I pray that God’s will be done.
The past few weeks, I’ve prayed and figured I should write out my political ideas in one spiritual guide, as concisely and distilled as possible — just get it all out of my system and make it a monthly post. I think it will be an important one. Important enough that I’m planning on soliciting editorial feedback before I post it, something I’ve never done here before. I won’t be able to finish it in time for this month, but maybe that’s so I could write this instead (my fortieth post) to reorient myself and my readers toward what’s on the horizon. As a teaser for what’s coming I’ll put here what I’ve prepared for the lead image. After that, to help pass the time, I’ve got a little something extra on how it could possibly appear that God is changeable.
I originally wrote this paper in February 2001 to fulfill a short assignment for a course on Indian philosophy. It’s one of the little nuggets of knowledge that has stayed with me through the years. I’m reminded of it whenever I hear talk of God changing, an interpretation of biblical revelation meant to contrast with Platonist Western philosophy. But it’s probably best to keep in mind that European dialectic is in fact Indo-European dialectic. There are more pitfalls to worry about than Platonism. A swirling God, whose behavioral changeability can be thought of as continous with creatures to some degree, who subsumes mutability in His identity theologically and not just incarnationally, is not the God of biblical revelation.
Henotheism
In the nineteenth century, when first applying the methods of modern academic scholarship to Indian culture, seminal Indologist and father of comparative religion Max Müller coined the word, “henotheism.”1 Henotheism refers to the particular mode of worship found in the ancient Vedas, where various gods can all be found to be worshiped as the one true god at the exclusion of the others. Now this god is worshiped as the highest god, now that one, now this other one, and so forth. The root heno-, or hen-, comes from the neutered form of the masculine Greek word heis, meaning “one,” but with different connotation from its counterpart mono, as in “monotheism.” Hen- comes from the Indo-European root sem-, also meaning “one,” from which we get words like “simultaneous,” “assemble,” and “ensemble,” and which in Sanskrit becomes the root sam-, meaning “together”; our word “same” has a related origin.
So by “henotheism” is meant an ensemble of gods which is in fact one supreme god? Well, as concerns the Vedas this conclusion cannot be drawn unilaterally. Yes, eventually the Vedas read, “To what is one, sages give many a title: they call it Agni, Yama, Mātariśvan” (RV 1.164.46). By this juncture, however, a perspective is taken that is different from that which spawned henotheism in the first place. It can be difficult to understand how one can at this fire praise god A over god B and at that fire praise god B over god A, but it would be wrong and misleading merely to dismiss the matter as a contradiction. A typically Western view of the universe is that the material realm is ceaselessly in flux and unreliable, while the spiritual realm is eternal and unchanging, and therefore yields authority. It seems, however, that in Vedic henotheism the spiritual realm may be eternal but need not be unchanging. In accord with the material realm, it too can be in a state of flux, but at every given moment — that is, within the temporally ubiquitous present — it encompasses eternity and therefore yields divine authority. This system only works if one maintains a subjective, involved perspective within the present moment. Then every moment kicks up for the participant in worship a new eternity and a new god to be worshiped, for whatever the situation calls — indeed, the Vedas are very practical. If the need arises, one can sing that “Indra is sovran lord of Earth and Heaven” (RV 10.89.10), and then, as necessity might have it, turn to Agni, “the king of all worship, the guardian of Rta,” (RV 1.1.8), “who alone rules over the gods like Varuna” (RV 1.143.4). This apparent contradiction is entirely possible to the one who can sing, “This altar is the farthest end of the earth; this sacrifice is the navel of the universe.... This Brahmin priest is the final abode of Speech” (RV 1.164.35). Such a priest sings “a holy prayer, incessant, new, matchless, common to the earth and heaven” (RV 10.89.3).
It is ironic, however, that Agni is said alone to rule over the gods ... like Varuna. As if the devotee remembers a moment ago giving all these lauds to another god, he says, Yes, like what I said about Varuna — Agni, you too alone rule over all! If one in the least abandons the present moment and the subjective perspective, taking the position of an observer rather than a participant, henotheism transforms into something else. Considering objectively the sight of two priests, or just one priest, worshiping different supreme gods during the same ritual, one must either admit a contradiction or identify the gods as one. According to the Vedas, both results are had. Some lose faith and satirize the sacrifices, mocking the priests as frogs gathered around a pool (RV 7.103). Others identify the gods with each other, devising various systems of monotheism and monism. However, the subjective perspective and the experience of the present moment are by no means abandoned altogether. The monistic Puruşa myth is precisely a synthesis of subject and object; Puruşa, both man and supreme god, becomes both the subject and the object of sacrifice. With the monotheisms of today, moreover, a Vaişnavite may see no contradiction in offering sacrifice in a Śaivite temple or in praying at the shrine of a Sufi saint. Henotheism indeed never ceases to be an integral part of Indian belief and practice.
Just to update my scholarship a little here, a note from Wikipedia: “Friedrich Schelling (1775–1854) coined the word [henotheism], and Friedrich Welcker (1784–1868) used it to depict primitive monotheism among ancient Greeks. Max Müller (1823–1900), a German philologist and orientalist, brought the term into wider usage in his scholarship on the Indian religions.”
It is good to hear things are better for you. I think there are many of us looking forward to reading more of your work.
Who will pay for those Fudge Rounds?