How shall we praise thee?

The Hebrews opted for a proper name, Yahweh, with a probable vague etymology of `I shall be what I shall be’. At least it was a word devoid of gender and number! But then it became a `national’ God!

The Latins took to Deus, a cousin of our Deva, the Iranian Daiva and the Greek Theos — `the shining one’, used as often in the plural as in the singular. (The Romans did have the idea of a supreme deus, the `Shining Father’ hidden behind Jupiter, also found in the Vedas as Dyauspitar, the `Father in the shining regions of heaven’. Unfortunately, `Jove’ gets so mixed up in his later personal life that the name cannot help me in my devotion.) `Deus’ and therefore `Deva’ remains alive and is invoked in Southern European languages: Dios, Deu, Dio, Dieu… Under the influence of the Bible he is the Supreme Being, creator and controller of the Universe.Somewhat distant, though….

The Indian tradition offers rich linguistic resources. Not all can be fully translated into English, but they do have a rich content of their own. Aatman, at times specified as Paramaatman, cancels out the distance of the Latin `Deus’: It is the very breathing Self, close to what Bishop John Robinson called `the Ground of Being’, the most appropriate modern substitute for the anodyne `God’… Its cosmic equivalent is Brahman, the ever-growing Being, the all-encompassing root of the Universe. A friend of mine used often an almost equivalent English expression: she would speak of the "Ineffable Mystery" that surrounds us and is at the root of our Being.I liked the expression. It says something of a Reality that embraces and at the same time eludes us.

The popular words in North India at any rate are Ishvara, equivalently Parameshvara, `highest Lord’, dear to the Shaivite tradition, and Bhagavan, the One endowed with all auspicious qualities, more at home among the Vaishnavas. Strangely, Ishvara has fully entered the Christian vocabulary, but for some reason Bhagavan is avoided in the official Hindi liturgy. However, he is familiar to Christian popular hymns and poetry. Bhagavan connotes love, closeness, intimate relationship.

Jesus preferred a simple word, Abba, Father or `Daddy’, expressive of an intimate and trustful relationship rather than of any metaphysic or historical associations. As simple as that, `Dad’, Bapu. It speaks of love. Much of the Indian tradition will have the feminine equivalent, Amma, `Mother’. It matters little which gender we use to denote the One beyond all gender. The important thing is the personal relationship which hovers above dogmas, cultic expressions and churches. `Our Father!’ `Our Mother!’Jesus also told us that we discover the Father in the faces of those in need.