e ultimate cause and foundation, source, and goal of all existence. This ultimate reality is called Brahman. As the All, Brahman causes the universe and all beings to emanate from itself, transforms itself into the universe, or assumes its appearance. Brahman is in all things and is the Self (atman) of all living beings. Brahman is the creator, preserver, or transformer and reabsorber of everything. Although it is Being in itself, without attributes and qualities and hence impersonal, it may also be conceived of as a personal high God, usually as Vishnu (Visnu) or Siva. This fundamental belief in and the essentially religious search for ultimate reality - that is, the One is the All - have continued almost unaltered for more than 30 centuries and has been the central focus of Indias spiritual life. In some perceptions, Hinduism has been called atheistic. In other perceptions, and this is perhaps the more common one, it is labeled polytheistic. The term polytheism acknowledges the presence of a God-figure in a religious system, but in the plural. Thus it is said that Hindus worship many such beings we call God. But obviously this implies a very profound difference in the understanding of what such a God could be. It is often said that Hindus worship three gods and they are in fact called the Hindu Trinity. The gods involved are: Brahma, Visnu and Siva. The first is supposed to create the world (at the beginning of each cosmic cycle), the second to maintain it in being, and Siva, at the end of a cosmic cycle, to destroy it again. But then a further idea is added which is ignored by the proponents of the theory of a Hindu Trinity. What is added invariably implies that, over and above these three figures lies a single reality. This one above the three controls the activities of the creation etc. Brahma and the others, who carry out these functions, are merely manifestations of that highest being, or they relate to it in some other, equally ...
