We now know the definition of religion: Religion is the recognized and acknowledged relationship between God as Being and the entity which God sustains.
The Essence of Religion
We also know the equivalent of religion in the Vedas – it is dharma, which comes from the verb "to hold in relation to someone." We have clarified that religion, dharma, is such a relationship between God and the living being that sustains the living being's existence in relation to God, as its sustainer. We are not talking about religion as a relationship between one being and another being. Nor are we talking about what sustains one being's position in relation to other beings, as these questions are examined not by religion, but by various branches of science, such as sociology, relationship psychology, economics, etc. We are interested in the most important and ultimate relationship, between Being and the entity, between God and man.
Typology of Religions
Why do we need this? Well, first of all, we would say that people who love tradition often do not raise existential questions and perceive religion only as an expression of national customs. We, however, as lovers of wisdom, are drawn to the answers to questions such as what is the highest relationship with God, and what this relationship can provide us. Even without knowing the exact answer, we suspect that such a relationship should provide us with the greatest fullness of being and happiness.
Based on Vedic knowledge, we will try to construct a typology of religions. This term also emerged in the West in an attempt to generalize and classify the abundance of religious expressions. To the argument of why we always want to compare one religion with another and thus find which is superior and which is inferior, we answer that a person can only know their environment by comparing unknown phenomena with those already known. The human mind (which is the instrument of knowledge for the conditioned soul) can only analyze and understand by classifying, sorting, and comparing, and by creating hierarchical structures. People who oppose the comparison of religious expressions themselves cannot manage without this cognitive tool given to us by nature itself. All fields of knowledge try to present their typologies, be they physical, chemical, biological, mathematical, economic, or sociological.
For us, philosophically seeking the essence of religion in its manifestations, it is most important to find those forms of its expression where religion is just beginning to manifest, and where it has appeared in its full form. That is, we want to find the lowest point of religion, below which religion no longer exists, or is completely hidden (since we have already said that man's very existence is religious, but he may not be religous), and also the highest point of religion, in which man's relationship with God would be revealed and implemented most fully.
The Teaching of Srila Prabhupāda
Furthermore, Srila Prabhupāda said that if a hunter goes
hunting, he should go to hunt a rhinoceros. After all, if he
goes to hunt a rabbit and does not catch it, everyone will laugh
at him, saying: "just look at him, he couldn't even catch a
rabbit," and if he does catch a rabbit, everyone will say:
"what’s the big deal, anyone can catch a rabbit."
However, if he goes to hunt a rhinoceros and fails, everyone will
say: "Of course, no one has managed to hunt a rhinoceros, why did
you think you would succeed?" But if he catches the rhinoceros, everyone
will be amazed: "Wow, how did you manage to hunt a rhinoceros?" In
this way, a persistent person will always strive for the highest
goal, because even if they fail to reach it, they will automatically
achieve all lower goals. However, if they succeed, we can say that
this person is truly happy, because they achieved the most difficult
to reach and long-awaited goal.
Typology of Religions in the West
Thus, the typology of religions has been known in the West for quite a long time, so let's take a look at it. Researchers of religion divide all religions into two large groups: Judeo-Christian and the Orient. Judeo-Christian religions are divided into Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Christianity, again, is divided into Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism. These in turn have various forms. The Orient is divided into Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Shintoism, etc. Such a classification certainly helps to understand the spread of religious traditions and their development, but it does not help us at all to understand the essence of religion and the degree of its revelation. On the contrary, such a classification of religions causes more confusion and even a kind of "class struggle," where one religious group tries to prove its superiority over others based on historical, territorial, or slogan-based arguments. One such argument is mentioned by A. Maceina in his book "Philosophy of Religion," speaking about "salvation, which, truth be told, every religion proclaims, but only Christ realizes." This statement is very bold, but it is based only on the knowledge of Christianity, and not a broader context. Thus, the classification of religions by name, historical development, and the area of its spread causes confusion for the philosopher.
Vedic Typology of Religions
The Vedas present a completely different typology of religions, which is based on the revelation of the relationship between God and the living being. This is a unique contribution of the Vedas to the world's religious research. What is considered the scriptures of one of the world's religions provides us with information not only about one religion, but also provides methods to understand and evaluate any manifestation of religion in terms of achieving a relationship with God.
In the Vedas, one can find at least several typologies that have different purposes. For example, living beings can be divided into five categories according to the level of development of their consciousness:
Five Stages of Consciousness
- ācchādita-cetana (covered consciousness) – stones, trees, plants, other immobile creatures.
- saṅkucita-cetana (stunted consciousness) – animals, birds, insects, aquatic creatures.
- mukulita-cetana (budding consciousness) – living beings who have received a human body and at the same time the opportunity to know themselves.
- vikasita-cetana (blooming consciousness) – those people who begin to live a spiritual life.
- pūrṇa-vikasita-cetana (fully išsiskleidusi sąmonė) – those people who have reached the perfection of life.
This classification speaks about the stages of the development of consciousness among living beings, and in that respect it is certainly superior to the Western typology, but it says nothing to us about worldviews and methods used by beings at each of the stages of consciousness. Therefore, we will take another classification, which is often used by Srila Prabhupāda and other earlier acharyas.
According to this classification, living beings are divided into two categories:
Uncivilized
All immobile beings (such as trees, plants, and stones), as well as all animals and some humans.
Civilized
Humans and higher beings who follow the principles of religion.
In the Hitopadesha there is a verse that states:
āhāra-nidrā-bhaya-maithunaṁ ca
sāmānyam etat paśubhir narāṇām
dharmo hi teṣām adhiko viśeṣo
dharmeṇa hīnāḥ paśubhiḥ samānāḥ
"Eating, sleeping, the need for defense, and mating are the same for animals and for humans. What distinguishes a human from an animal is following dharma – the principles of religion established by God. Taking these principles of religion away from a human, he becomes similar to an animal."
In turn, civilized people are divided into two categories: materialists and transcendentalists.
Materialists
Are all those who, while acknowledging and obeying the authority of God, want to live well in this world. They worship God, asking Him for material favors: health, wealth, a good wife, and good children, etc.
Transcendentalists
They worship God while seeking transcendence – the beyond, the spiritual world.
They are again divided into three categories:
Karma yogis
They renounce the results of their activities and do good deeds for others to thus earn God's grace.
Jnana yogis
They perform austerities and worship God, asking Him to pull them out of this material world. For them, it does not matter what the spiritual world will be like.
Bhakti yogis
They strive to love God and do everything only for His pleasure, understanding that they are inseparable parts of God.
Again, the latter (bhakti yogis) are divided into two categories:
Mishra Bhakti
Impure devotional service
They perform devotional service but have not yet gotten rid of desires that are contrary to loving service to God. These desires may be to arrange their material life... It can also be the desire to escape from this world, or the desire to merge with God.
Shuddha Bhakti
Pure devotional service
Pure service to God, whose only motive and desire: that for Krishna everything would be well, that He would be happy. Such devotional service is performed continuously, it has no other motives except Krishna's welfare and joy.
Conclusions of the Typology of Religions
Based on this typology, we can already distinguish the lowest and highest religious expression points. The place where religion begins is submission or bowing down to God, seeking material well-being. Clearly, beliefs that do not recognize God as Being and man as an entity sustained by God do not fall into the definition of religion. The first thing that we can already see is that widely spread "religions," such as Buddhism, Taoism, Satanism, Osho's movement cannot be called religious, because they recognize neither God nor the immortality of the soul. In this respect, the Indian Mayavada philosophy, popularized in the West by such personalities as Swami Vivekananda, Krishnamurti, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, etc., also cannot be called a religion, because it considers that God's form is a creation of illusion. And the difference between living beings and God also does not exist, just as flowers do not bloom in the sky ("pushpakasha"). Since Mayavada claims that there is only Being, and beings in reality do not exist, the relationship between Being and the entity, which is the basis of religion, is impossible from this point of view, therefore such a view does not have the essence of religion. Magic, extrasensory, and spiritualism phenomena as well as "New age" movements will also not be able to be called religious because they do not have religious content. All these methods, however complex or sophisticated they may be, do not fall into the field of the definition of a civilized human. On the other hand even a simple person who asks God for material favors and worships Him for this purpose will be considered civilized, because he perceives the essential idea of religion: the connection between God as the protector and the living being as completely dependent on God's grace.
Based on this typology, we will also quickly see that in all religious phenomena, which we name according to the period of their appearance or the territory of their spread, there is a larger part of followers who are materialists and a smaller part of followers who will be transcendentalists. Among them, again, there will be those who worship God wanting to terminate material existence and those who will only want to love God. We will find such people in Judaism and Christianity and Hinduism, that is, anywhere. Therefore, dividing religions according to rituals or founders only hides from us the essence of religion, which lies in all its manifestations.
Now, another philosophical challenge awaits the persistent seekers of truth. We have found the lowest point of religion and we believe we have found the highest point of religion. All other religious manifestations are in one place or another between these two and therefore do not interest us much. However, this highest point of religion, which is most interesting to us, has not yet been quite clearly defined.
The Highest Point of Religion
In search of this definition, we quickly encounter a verse from Srimad Bhagavatam 1.2.6, which directly shows what we are looking for:
Srimad Bhagavatam 1.2.6
sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo
yato bhaktir adhokṣaje
ahaituky apratihatā
yayātmā suprasīdati
"The supreme occupation (dharma) for all humanity is that by which men can attain to loving devotional service unto the transcendent Lord. Such devotional service must be unmotivated and uninterrupted to completely satisfy the soul."
This verse states that the highest manifestation or occupation of religion is not intended for one group of people; it is the occupation of all humanity. Temporary dharmas or lower manifestations of religion may suit one person, but will be unacceptable to another person or group. However, the manifestation of religion at its highest degree will be equally acceptable to all categories of people. We can even say that differences between religions exist only as long as people do not know who God is and who the living being is, and what the relationship between them is. However, all these differences between religions disappear by themselves when a person knows God, himself, and the relationship between them. One Sufi poet said: "for those who love God there is no other religion except love for God."
The word bhakti in this verse means loving service to God. This service is not forced. It is an expression of love. Even in this world, when a boy loves a girl, he wants to serve her. And vice versa, if a boy tells his girl that he loves her, but when asked to hand her something, answers: pick it up yourself, we will understand that in reality he does not love her.
Speaking about loving devotional service to Krishna, we naturally want to know the signs of devotion based on which we would say that love is not artificial or merely declared.
🙏 Sharanagati – 6 Signs of Devotion
The most precise description of the signs of devotion is found in Hari-bhakti-vilasa (11.417):
ānukūlyasya saṅkalpaḥ
prātikūlyasya varjanam
rakṣiṣyatīti viśvāso
goptṛtve varaṇaṁ tathā
ātma-nikṣepa-kārpaṇye
ṣaḍ-vidhā śaraṇāgatiḥ
To accept everything that is favorable for service to Krishna, even if it causes personal inconvenience.
To reject everything that is unfavorable in serving Krishna, even if these things are very dear and important to us.
To be convinced that Krishna will protect us in any situation, and whatever happens to us is indeed Krishna's grace to us and intended for our benefit.
To consider Krishna as one's only master and protector. Never to turn to other personalities in search of things that we do not receive from Krishna. Even if someone offered us all the kingdoms of the world, as Maya (in the form of Satan) once offered Jesus Christ, we should understand that if Krishna does not give it to us, it is only for our benefit. About this Krishna speaks Himself:
To surrender oneself to the Supreme. To make the Lord's desires one's own desires.
To consider oneself humble and incapable of independently getting rid of illusion and material desires. We are atom-sized souls, who although spiritual in nature, are prone to succumb to illusion. Therefore, we cannot liberate ourselves from it. Even the success of material life does not depend on us; it is guaranteed only by the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
To understand that the soul is tiny and cannot independently exist, or be satisfied, or serve God, is called realizing how humble you are. However, humility is not self-deprecation, which the Vedas do not encourage. Living beings are not contemptible. They are of the same nature as God and revealed to communicate with Him. This is the very greatest value of the soul, that the Almighty God Himself desires to communicate with us. Therefore, the view that "no one needs me, no one loves me" is deeply mistaken.
What should this loving service be like? Suta Gosvami in this verse provides two criteria: ahaituki (without any motivation) and apratihata (independent of external circumstances). Devotional service will give its result only when performed solely for Krishna's pleasure. Any other motivational elements (e.g., serving God in pursuit of comfort in life or wanting to merge with God) distance us from the highest point of religion, because elements unnecessary for this relationship are introduced into the relationship with God.
Also, the activity of devotional service cannot depend on external circumstances. We cannot excuse ourselves by saying that we cannot serve God because health, work, or other things interfere. Also, we cannot think that some things are necessary to maintain our relationship with God. All this would mean that additional relationship categories are introduced into the being's relationship with God (another being or other objects). God sustains our existence and maintains the relationship with Him solely by Himself. All additional elements that complement or change this sustaining only distort the expression of religion and again draw away from the highest point of religion.
Conclusion
Suta Gosvami also tells us what benefit such a highest expression of religion will give us:
The soul becomes completely satisfied. The only desire that makes us perform any activity is the desire to become happy. When one effort fails, we grab onto others. However, in reality, a person can be happy and satisfied only when they fulfill the purpose of their existence, which again, they did not set for themselves. By recognizing and fulfilling its relationship with God as its Creator, the soul fulfills its highest purpose and reaches the highest level of fulfillment – the perfection of happiness.
Self-Check Questions
- How can we divide various manifestations of religion?
- Can we claim that one religion is better than another? If so, on what basis?
- Choose one of the well-known alleged religions and reasonably prove that it is not a religion.
- Is the classification of religions by name, time of appearance, and territory of spread correct?
- Can a perfect religion exist? What should it be like? What signs would it have?