I was thinking about how it became common for people in the West to think that the more monotheism a religion has, the more intellectually superior it is, but my opinion is that it’s exactly the opposite, that monotheism is the first stupid idea an undeveloped mind of a fanatic will come up with, and rather than being all-encompassing and all-inclusive, it usually ends up being extremely reductionist and exclusive, quite hostile to any form of difference in opinion or understanding.

Trinity can be a sophisticated theistic way of illustrating God’s connection with the world and his interaction with human spirit. Any other stance will quickly degenerate into deism, removing God from any possibility of contact with the world other than the point of creation.

However, Hinduism shows the flexibility that is possible when someone doesn’t care about whether something is monotheistic or not, but whether it is a good explanation of reality or not. In Hinduism, you can have brahman, the transcendental Absolute, manifesting as both the Gods and the world, the Gods can manifest different aspects of brahman, and God-states are described as male-female couples, like Radha-Krishna or Shiva-Shakti, where male and female versions of the same spiritual state are described as behaviorally completely different. Also, God can choose to incarnate as his own worshipper in order to feel the taste of his own being from another perspective. There is also a concept of God incarnating together with his companions, basically Purusha-level spiritual beings who all participate in the same level of consciousness, in order to be able to manifest this level of consciousness on the physical plane.

All the while, the Hindus will have no problem with the statement that all Gods are brahman, or that an entire plane of existence is Krishna, or that God can simultaneously be personal, impersonal, incarnated, incarnated as a group of people simultaneously, incarnated in different aspects having a relationship, being pure knowledge and being a source of a special kind of ignorance (yogamaya).

Basically, that’s what you get when sophisticated minds explore complex ideas. They end up with stuff that actually makes you think, not just Allahu akbar like a zombie.