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I identify with the ancient mystery religions, which are initiatic and urban. I believe in a sort of monism. In ancient times, it was normal for someone to belong to several cults (in the ancient sense) at once. One could be initiated into the mysteries of Mithras, Isis, Dea Syria, Mars and not have any sense of conflict about it. Hinduism in its most highly developed form, Advaita Vedanta unifies different ideas and reduces things to nirguna Brahman that is to say a supreme spirit without attributes, but can be attributed attributes (saguna Brahman), a sort of contradiction.
I believe that nature is at once fluid and orderly. There are established patterns, but also an infinite number of variations. In certain Hindu texts, Brahman is referred to as the Manifest and the Unmanifest... I believe Brahman is both masculine and feminine, and neither at the same time. This is contradiction I know, but that which establishes laws need not also itself be restrained by those laws. We are ultimately not capable of understanding it except perhaps through experience (meditation, entheogens etc.)
Mediterranean indigenous religion, before its being supplanted by Christianity by imperial decree, was starting to evolve toward monism, that is, a belief in many gods united under a single divine force, or numinosity. This has its cognate in Hindu Dharma (which is a misnomer, Hindu is the Persian rendering of the Sindhu river, which was transmitted to the British who had a habit of categorizing everything, and having no other word for Indian indigenous customs, beliefs, and its vast often contradictory body of philosophies, used the term 'Hindu' as a convenient umbrella.) The term used in the texts was Sanathana Dharma i.e. the eternal religion (way, custom, natural law.. compare to Greek nomos, Roman Mos maiorum) because it never occurred to them to give their beliefs a name, this was an alien phenomenon exclusive to the Abrahamic creeds.
The Vedic people had a habit of exalting a particular deity as the highest deity while they were composing poems in honour of that deity to the exclusion of all others. This was called henotheism by the German indologist Max Mueller.. i.e. the belief that while other gods existed, by the devotee they were not necessarily regarded.
This manifested itself later on in Vedanta (Sanskrit: ved-anta lit. "The end of the Vedas" or "End of Knowledge") where any personal deity could be identified with the Absolute (Brahman). In this way, my ishta devi or patron deity is the goddess Kali as to me she represents the underlying fabric of reality, i.e. the most primal manifestation of that which is, blood, death, night, frenzy, dissolution, disorder, dynamic energy.. She calls to me in my innermost being, she is very literally encoded in my being. Something that I cannot transcend, nor do I really seek to, but instead I seek to celebrate and live in accordance with it.
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