WHAT IS HINDUISM?
to competition for land, resources and human labour itself.
The Jewish god-image served first of all to reflect the
jealous, competitive, aggressive and unpredictable
characteristics of the infantile human ego. Later, ‘God’
became a controlling ‘Father’ or superego, using religious
regulations to reign in the otherwise rampant and still
infantile human ego itself. The Jewish prophets foresaw the
need for humanity to develop ego-awareness, but also
anticipated that it would need balancing. Christianity was
called for in order to balance the judgemental and punitive
character of the Father God with characteristics of love and
compassion. In India, however, developments took a quite
different course. The ‘Rishis’ – ‘seer-hearers’ and priest-
kings of ancient Indian civilisation – had preserved an
inherited pre-egoic awareness and knowledge and passed it
on to other cultures. Instead of identifying God with a
‘Father’ on high and his one Son, the Divine was identified
with the source and innermost Self of every human being.
Religion then, established its deeper purpose of re-linking
human ego-awareness with its source in the inner self and
the Divine Awareness. Much later, when a militant
Christianity ruled Europe through the power of Rome, its
military expansion was halted by the still ‘heathen’ Teutonic
tribes – enabling Germany to serve as the European centre
of an artistic and philosophical culture that retained the
inherited knowledge or ‘Gnosis’ of earlier pre-Roman