Introduction to Hindu Gods
Within the Indian tradition the Gods are first and foremost the constituents of the individual’s consciousness, and only secondarily the outer processes. They may be seen as the precognitive and cognitive centres of the brain.
– Subhash Kak
The Hindu traditions are famously comfortable with the idea that the Absolute Reality, while formless and transcendent, is perfectly capable of manifesting in both divine and mundane forms. So Shakti, the formless source of everything, is understood to take forms – as gods and goddesses, personifications of the different energies that make up the multiple dimensions of existence and of our own consciousness.
God is all-pervasive, perfect, and eternal. He is in all things, both within and without. He is immanent in all beings and lives in the temple of the Heart in the form of the inner Self. Yet there are few who know Him. Many deluded people do not believe that He exists–in the heart or anywhere else on this earth–for nowadays faith in God is regarded as false. Harbouring such ever-increasing doubts, the hearts of these people become dry and faithless.
– Swami Muktananda
Writing is a symptom of the Kali Yuga, like a symptom of an illness implying the loss of wholeness. As time moved us deeper into this cycle, those sages who were the keepers of the eternal wisdom endeavored to pass Eternal Knowledge on. They understood that in this fallen era, the best way to encode the primordial science of metaphysical principles was to personify them. Thus the mechanics of the universe and our sense organs are depicted as deities, the polarities in male and female.