The One and the Many

Understanding the relationship between the ONE and the MANY:

Is Hinduism monotheistic or polytheistic?

With over 330 million deities it surely looks like a polytheism. Yet Hindus say they are monotheistic.* How are we to make sense out of this apparent contradiction?

This is the classic philosophical problem of the one and the many: what is the relationship between the one overarching singular ultimate reality vs. the many things that appear to the eye? In Hinduism, the one is the Brahman while the many are the personified deities or manifest forms (murtis) of the One.

Regarding the question of Oneness in relation to all beings... Perhaps this analogy will help:

Compare the One and the Many to a Forest and the trees. One forest is comprised of many trees. We can look at the whole (forest) or the individual trees (many). 

If you are in the forest, among the trees, it is hard to see the forest. You tend to only see many trees. You are too close to see how they are all just one forest. This is what "maya" (illusion) and "avidya" (ignorance) are. 

When looking from a distance, from outside the forest, then you see and realize that it is all just ONE forest!


And so, it is one forest AND many trees - all at the same time. To argue for one or the other as the answer to the question "is it one or many?" is to get the answer wrong. The answer is BOTH! And therein lies the paradox of Truth - Truth is often more complex than we can comprehend.

Another analogy: the nesting dolls

A series of wooden dolls that are smaller and smaller, each fitting into the next larger one. All together, you can only see the ONE biggest doll. Only when you start opening one after the other, do you come to learn just how MANY of them there are. The largest (macro) one includes all the smaller ones, though the smaller ones do not include the larger ones. The smaller elements of the universe are part of (together they make up) the entire Universe. Thus the ONE is comprised of the MANY. When we take things apart (to analyze them up close), we can see the many parts. When we put them together, we see the ONE.


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* In all the many religions I have learned or heard about, many being "polytheistic", in fact, they all end up having just one High God. However, that High God is generally so transcendent as to be out of reach, too abstract or removed from our everyday concerns, to be of much focus for the religion. It is the many lesser divinities that get the most attention.

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