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Post by Ldd on Jan 12, 2020 9:15:30 GMT -6
Realization Flashbulb : I'm trying to understand what my guru means when he says "Not even God comes between a disciple and his guru."
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Post by meeno8 on Jan 12, 2020 11:12:10 GMT -6
Hindu philosophy refers to philosophies, world views and teachings that emerged in ancient India. These include six systems (ṣaḍdarśana) – Sankhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimamsa and Vedanta. These are also called the Astika (orthodox) philosophical traditions and are those that accept the Vedas as an authoritative, important source of knowledge. Ancient and medieval India was also the source of philosophies that share philosophical concepts but rejected the Vedas, and these have been called nāstika (heterodox or non-orthodox) Nāstika Indian philosophies include Buddhism, Jainism, Cārvāka, Ājīvika, and others.
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Post by Ldd on Jan 12, 2020 15:01:26 GMT -6
Hindu philosophy refers to philosophies, world views and teachings that emerged in ancient India. These include six systems (ṣaḍdarśana) – Sankhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimamsa and Vedanta. These are also called the Astika (orthodox) philosophical traditions and are those that accept the Vedas as an authoritative, important source of knowledge. Ancient and medieval India was also the source of philosophies that share philosophical concepts but rejected the Vedas, and these have been called nāstika (heterodox or non-orthodox) Nāstika Indian philosophies include Buddhism, Jainism, Cārvāka, Ājīvika, and others. |
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Post by Ldd on Jan 12, 2020 15:04:36 GMT -6
For Ramdasji. What's mimamsa. And how do you feel it helped to defeat Buddhism in India ?
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subala
Junior Member
Posts: 67
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Post by subala on Jan 18, 2020 16:38:06 GMT -6
These are fantastic essays Nitai Dasji! Thanks so much for posting them!! Did you pull them from the Jiva site recently?? Because I can't find them on there anywhere. Where did you find them? I did find countless things that Babaji wants to sell on the Jiva site. I understand selling books, but all the lectures too?! Oh well, I guess he's running a business like most with their own institutions. Clearly I have mixed feelings about 'sadhus' seemingly charging for things that in my opinion shouldn't be charged for. These days with 'bhakti' becoming popular among the yoga crowd, it does make me a little sick at all these things being charged for. "Come to my kirtan! Only $30!!" "Come do some service on my farm. Only $200!" "Come to my class. $108! (half off the normal price! It's a steal!!)" Etc. ad nausea. It's subjective and relative I suppose. And I have similar feelings about the self-advertising too. Then again, who's to say who is doing the advertising? Is it ok if it's the students advertising their guru?! Anyway, I see this discussion going off the deep end here. Let's see what happens... Jai Sri Radhe! Nilamadhava dasji. Those articles were given to me by Malati Dasi who now lives and works at the Jiva Institute. Here is what she said in an email about a month ago: It has been a long time that we have been in contact. I am now fully engaged in my seva for Babaji Satyanarayana Das and Jiva Institute and manage the website jiva.org. At present we have a Q & A on re-initiation and many IGM people became upset. I remember that I have read somewhere that Bhaktisiddhanta reinitiated a disciple of Bipin Bihari. It would be very helpful to have that reference, so I was wondering whether you know about that.
Also, I tried to download some of your articles on BVT and parampara issue but was not successful. Are you Nitai zine journals still online? They were real eye-openers. I sent her back some suggestions and some of the old essays I wrote. They are still on the old Bhajan-kutir site I used to use. This was her response: Radhe Radhe! Happy to hear from you as well. I found an good essay about Bhaktivinoda Thakur and Bipin Bihari in my archives and Babaij also found it interesting, but it had no author's name. Upon research in the internet I found that you are the author, great!
Advaitaji is regularly updating the MISKCONCEPTION files. I have also made a few small contributions to it. Here is the latest update, if you interested, and another file that one of my godbrothers had compiled.
I have your old Nitaizine's from previously (3 of them were particularly interesting for me at that time), but also checked the link you sent and it gave the following message:
The page you were on is trying to send you to an invalid URL www.bhajankutir.net(,).She attached those two essays with the last email and I shared them with the members of this symposium. Does anyone else have trouble getting to the Bhajan Kutir site? It comes right up for me. In all the wonderful analysis of the misconceptions spread and practised by the Bimal Prasad cults I have noticed that there is no mention of the lies about Ananta Vasudeva. These lies are found in the the BBT version of the CC. A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami writes that Ananta Vasudeva killed himself but I understand that he took shelter of a Goswami at The Radharaman complex. What is known about this brave man’s post GM life? |
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Post by Nitaidas on Jan 18, 2020 22:39:47 GMT -6
Nilamadhava dasji. Those articles were given to me by Malati Dasi who now lives and works at the Jiva Institute. Here is what she said in an email about a month ago: It has been a long time that we have been in contact. I am now fully engaged in my seva for Babaji Satyanarayana Das and Jiva Institute and manage the website jiva.org. At present we have a Q & A on re-initiation and many IGM people became upset. I remember that I have read somewhere that Bhaktisiddhanta reinitiated a disciple of Bipin Bihari. It would be very helpful to have that reference, so I was wondering whether you know about that.
Also, I tried to download some of your articles on BVT and parampara issue but was not successful. Are you Nitai zine journals still online? They were real eye-openers. I sent her back some suggestions and some of the old essays I wrote. They are still on the old Bhajan-kutir site I used to use. This was her response: Radhe Radhe! Happy to hear from you as well. I found an good essay about Bhaktivinoda Thakur and Bipin Bihari in my archives and Babaij also found it interesting, but it had no author's name. Upon research in the internet I found that you are the author, great!
Advaitaji is regularly updating the MISKCONCEPTION files. I have also made a few small contributions to it. Here is the latest update, if you interested, and another file that one of my godbrothers had compiled.
I have your old Nitaizine's from previously (3 of them were particularly interesting for me at that time), but also checked the link you sent and it gave the following message:
The page you were on is trying to send you to an invalid URL www.bhajankutir.net(,).She attached those two essays with the last email and I shared them with the members of this symposium. Does anyone else have trouble getting to the Bhajan Kutir site? It comes right up for me. In all the wonderful analysis of the misconceptions spread and practised by the Bimal Prasad cults I have noticed that there is no mention of the lies about Ananta Vasudeva. These lies are found in the the BBT version of the CC. A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami writes that Ananta Vasudeva killed himself but I understand that he took shelter of a Goswami at The Radharaman complex. What is known about this brave man’s post GM life? This is what I wrote recently in an email to Steven Rosen on this matter: About Puridas (previously known as Ananta Vasudeva), his publications are unquestionably the best editions of CV classics available. He published them after he left GM in 1945 or so. I don't think the Radharamana Goswamis had anything to do with the actual creation or publication of those works. They are all in Bengali script and they were printed in Bengal and with financial support from Bengalis. They are all clearly marked "Not for Sale." Once the set was complete (54 works?), complete sets were given to various respectable members of the CV community, mostly babajs and Goswamis, for their study and then when those babas or Goswamis passed away someone came round to collect them and take them back to Puridas. They would then be given to another worthy bhakta and so forth and so on. The fact that they are now in the hands of Srivatsa Goswami is probably a result of the close relationship Puridas had with Srivatsa's father Purushotama Goswami. When Ananta Vasudeva left the GM he was being hunted by parties of GM members, that inexecrable worm Narayana Maharaja among them. His life was in danger. Purushotama Goswami gave him shelter and hid him away until things quieted down. I believe Purushotama Goswami also gave him initiation and the name Puridas. When Puridas died many years later he left the many sets of the books in his possession to Purushotama for distribution and those have passed now the Srivatsa. He is the one who blessed me with the editions I have. When I die I suppose someone will almost magically show up to collect them and take them back for redistribution. I heard this story from Srivatsa Goswami years ago. You can ask him for more details if you know him well.What a liar Bhaktivedanta was. I knew he was capable of cursing someone as he did in Juhu when there was a dispute over land. But, I never thought he was a liar. Guess I was wrong. This is a good example of how IGM can take a basically good person and make him bad. I expressed some worry about Bhaktivedanta's anger to the Mahanta of Govinda Kunda (Siddha Manohar Das Baba's ashram), Ananta Das Babaji. I was afraid that when I left ISKCON Bhaktivedanta would fly into a rage and curse me. Ananta Das Baba (different from Pandit Ananta Das Baba Mahanta of Radhakund), laughed and slapped his knee. He said, "don't worry, Bhaktivedana's anger is powerless." If only I had known in those days what a real Vaisnava looked and acted like, I would not have wasted my time with Bhaktivedanta and ISKCON. I will tell you the story of Puridas's departure from the GM later, unless someone else wants to tell it. It is mentioned in Karunamayi Das' book on his gurudev Madrasi Krsnadas Baba of Radhakund. [Added later: I don't mean to be so hard on Bhaktivedanta. He was good to me and I think he genuinely cared for me. I wish circumstances were different in our relationship. He accused me once of "always trying to change him" and then he slapped his knee and laughed. I detected real love there. Wherever he is, I wish him well.] |
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Post by Nityānanda dāsa on Jan 18, 2020 23:38:03 GMT -6
In all the wonderful analysis of the misconceptions spread and practised by the Bimal Prasad cults I have noticed that there is no mention of the lies about Ananta Vasudeva. These lies are found in the the BBT version of the CC. A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami writes that Ananta Vasudeva killed himself but I understand that he took shelter of a Goswami at The Radharaman complex. What is known about this brave man’s post GM life? This is what I wrote recently in an email to Steven Rosen on this matter: About Puridas (previously known as Ananta Vasudeva), his publications are unquestionably the best editions of CV classics available. He published them after he left GM in 1945 or so. I don't think the Radharamana Goswamis had anything to do with the actual creation or publication of those works. They are all in Bengali script and they were printed in Bengal and with financial support from Bengalis. They are all clearly marked "Not for Sale." Once the set was complete (54 works?), complete sets were given to various respectable members of the CV community, mostly babajs and Goswamis, for their study and then when those babas or Goswamis passed away someone came round to collect them and take them back to Puridas. They would then be given to another worthy bhakta and so forth and so on. The fact that they are now in the hands of Srivatsa Goswami is probably a result of the close relationship Puridas had with Srivatsa's father Purushotama Goswami. When Ananta Vasudeva left the GM he was being hunted by parties of GM members, that inexecrable worm Narayana Maharaja among them. His life was in danger. Purushotama Goswami gave him shelter and hid him away until things quieted down. I believe Purushotama Goswami also gave him initiation and the name Puridas. When Puridas died many years later he left the many sets of the books in his possession to Purushotama for distribution and those have passed now the Srivatsa. He is the one who blessed me with the editions I have. When I die I suppose someone will almost magically show up to collect them and take them back for redistribution. I heard this story from Srivatsa Goswami years ago. You can ask him for more details if you know him well.What a liar Bhaktivedanta was. I knew he was capable of cursing someone as he did in Juhu when there was a dispute over land. But, I never thought he was a liar. Guess I was wrong. This is a good example of how IGM can take a basically good person and make him bad. I expressed some worry about Bhaktivedanta's anger to the Mahanta of Govinda Kunda (Siddha Manohar Das Baba's ashram), Ananta Das Babaji. I was afraid that when I left ISKCON Bhaktivedanta would fly into a rage and curse me. Ananta Das Baba (different from Pandit Ananta Das Baba Mahanta of Radhakund), laughed and slapped his knee. He said, "don't worry Bhaktivedana's anger is powerless." If only I had known in those days what a real Vaisnava looked and acted like, I would not have wasted my time with Bhaktivedanta and ISKCON. I will tell you the story of Puridas's departure from the GM later, unless someone else wants to tell it. It is mentioned in Karunamayi Das' book on his gurudev Madrasi Krsnadas Baba of Radhakund. Nitai Baba, Can you please tell us more about these editions by Puridas? I think you said there was set of maybe 54 works. Do you know the titles? Do you think that Srivatsa Goswami would be willing to have them digitized/photographed for posterity/distribution/translation? Were they original works by Puridas, or copies of Gaudiya granthas, or maybe a combination of the two? Jai Sri Radhe! |
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Post by meeno8 on Jan 19, 2020 10:04:16 GMT -6
Re: mimamsa and Buddhists.
When I was a graduate student at University of Chicago in the department of South Asian Languages and Civilization in the early 1980s, I studied one text from the navya-nyaya school with a Sanskrit professor there, but I never read any mimamsa texts. When I was in my senior year at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) completing my BA in Philosophy, I took 2 courses in logic. The emphasis in the program at UIC is on philosophy of science, as it should have been in the 20th century (and now in the 21st century). I read Aritotle's book on Physics, and other later Western philosophers such as Locke, Hume and Leibnitz.
There is some overlap between Western logic and Indian schools of logic.
There is much to clean from the texts in the 6 darshans of India, but that is hardly the be all and end all of knowledge.
With the advent of Mahaprabhu, there was a global transformation, which included the flourishing of India under Mughal rule and the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment in Europe. Rule by tyrants and despots has been supplanted to a large degree over the past several centuries by democratic republics, and even the Crown in the UK is now a constitutional monarchy as opposed to the rule of Henry VIII. Special and general relativity and quantum mechanics fall under the category of acintya (inconceivable, except to the brilliant minds that came up with the theories), yet they have been verified over and over again in experiments even though there are all those paradoxes that we have so much difficulty wrapping our minds around.
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Post by meeno8 on Jan 19, 2020 12:31:22 GMT -6
plato.stanford.edu/entries/hermeneutics/And then there is relevance to today's society. How should CV be presented to the generation of millenials and the next generation, for example? If it is just some medieval tradition carrying on into this century and beyond, then what is its potential longevity in the first place? How can the presentation offline be of any significance, if the online presentation rules the day? I think we have to consider all of these questions carefully going forward.
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Post by meeno8 on Jan 19, 2020 12:42:15 GMT -6
ISKCON preaching is reductionist: "You are not that body." That is one phrase they like to parrot, among others. They generally do not memorize many verses from Sanskrit texts. Very few of them even bother to learn basic Sanskrit grammar (unless they by luck happened to pick up some in the various gurukulas), yet want to be recognized as scholars in the Caitanyaite tradition.
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Post by Nitaidas on Jan 19, 2020 13:30:30 GMT -6
This is what I wrote recently in an email to Steven Rosen on this matter: About Puridas (previously known as Ananta Vasudeva), his publications are unquestionably the best editions of CV classics available. He published them after he left GM in 1945 or so. I don't think the Radharamana Goswamis had anything to do with the actual creation or publication of those works. They are all in Bengali script and they were printed in Bengal and with financial support from Bengalis. They are all clearly marked "Not for Sale." Once the set was complete (54 works?), complete sets were given to various respectable members of the CV community, mostly babajs and Goswamis, for their study and then when those babas or Goswamis passed away someone came round to collect them and take them back to Puridas. They would then be given to another worthy bhakta and so forth and so on. The fact that they are now in the hands of Srivatsa Goswami is probably a result of the close relationship Puridas had with Srivatsa's father Purushotama Goswami. When Ananta Vasudeva left the GM he was being hunted by parties of GM members, that inexecrable worm Narayana Maharaja among them. His life was in danger. Purushotama Goswami gave him shelter and hid him away until things quieted down. I believe Purushotama Goswami also gave him initiation and the name Puridas. When Puridas died many years later he left the many sets of the books in his possession to Purushotama for distribution and those have passed now the Srivatsa. He is the one who blessed me with the editions I have. When I die I suppose someone will almost magically show up to collect them and take them back for redistribution. I heard this story from Srivatsa Goswami years ago. You can ask him for more details if you know him well.What a liar Bhaktivedanta was. I knew he was capable of cursing someone as he did in Juhu when there was a dispute over land. But, I never thought he was a liar. Guess I was wrong. This is a good example of how IGM can take a basically good person and make him bad. I expressed some worry about Bhaktivedanta's anger to the Mahanta of Govinda Kunda (Siddha Manohar Das Baba's ashram), Ananta Das Babaji. I was afraid that when I left ISKCON Bhaktivedanta would fly into a rage and curse me. Ananta Das Baba (different from Pandit Ananta Das Baba Mahanta of Radhakund), laughed and slapped his knee. He said, "don't worry Bhaktivedana's anger is powerless." If only I had known in those days what a real Vaisnava looked and acted like, I would not have wasted my time with Bhaktivedanta and ISKCON. I will tell you the story of Puridas's departure from the GM later, unless someone else wants to tell it. It is mentioned in Karunamayi Das' book on his gurudev Madrasi Krsnadas Baba of Radhakund. Nitai Baba, Can you please tell us more about these editions by Puridas? I think you said there was set of maybe 54 works. Do you know the titles? Do you think that Srivatsa Goswami would be willing to have them digitized/photographed for posterity/distribution/translation? Were they original works by Puridas, or copies of Gaudiya granthas, or maybe a combination of the two? Jai Sri Radhe! Hi Nilamadhava dasji, Well, I don't have all the names of the books in the series. The set I was given by Goswamiji is incomplete. Apparently, for some volumnes Srivatsa Goswami only has a few copies left. The set includes the CV comms. on the Bhagavata, all the sandarbhas, the literary works of Sri Jiva Goswami and Rupa Goswami, the collected works of Prabodhananda Sarasvati, Sanatana's Brhadbhavatamrta. What makes these works so good is that they are each based on several manuscripts and printed editions and contain footnotes with variant readings. So they are as close to critical editions of the major works of the CV canon as we have. They are all printed in Bengali script, not in Bengali, but only in the script. There are no Bengali translations in any of them, just the Sanskrit text. There is only one Bengali work that I know of among them. It is the Krsna-prema-tarangini by Raghunatha Bhagavatacarya, a verse translation of the Bhagavata's 10th and 11th Skandhas. You can get a good list, though probably not complete, if you go to the University of Chicago catalog and type in "Puridasa" That brings up about 40 or so. Srivatsa Goswami gave a set to Edward Dimock when he was in India. Those are now in the U of C library. That is where I got a photocopy of the Ujjvala-nilamani with the comms. of Sri Jiva and Visvanatha Cakravartin that is the basis of my translation. I don't know if the set in the U of C library is complete. They are really beautiful editions, an amazing effort by Puridasa after he left the GM. I don't know who his helpers were, but they did a great job. So we are lucky in CV. Every 10 or 20 years someone comes out with a collection of CV texts, starting in the 1880s with Ramanarayana Vidyaratna, Shyamlal Goswami (1890-1910) Nityasvarupa Brahmacari (1900-1915), Krsnadas Baba (1940-1960), Puridasa (1945-1955), Haridasa Dasa Babaji (1960-80), and Haridasa Sastri (1970-1990). What a wealth of material! Srivatsa Goswami may already have scanned the whole collection. He sent me a pdf of Rupa Goswami's Nataka-candrika several years ago. We can ask him. I have great respect for Srivatsa Goswami. If I were looking for a guru these days, I would give him a serious look. |
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subala
Junior Member
Posts: 67
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Post by subala on Jan 19, 2020 15:02:23 GMT -6
Nitai, I look forward to learning about Puridas’s post-GM cult days. He sounds like a remarkable man.
I’m an ex-disciple of Narayan Maharaja so I would be interested in hearing about his hunting of Puridas. Just as Bhaktivedanta Swami treated you well, I was treated well by Narayan Maharaja. Yet, I can’t help feeling cheated by the charlatan, because I was lied to. He taught what I call Neo-Iskconism. He used to criticise Iskcon preaching methods then does a 180 degree turn and adopts Iskcon’s methods with ex-Iskconites as “leaders” of his Neo-Iskcon. His defence of one of his sexually abusive sanyasis was inexcusable as the sanyasi assaulted another young woman a few years later. I rejected Narayan Maharaja and his Neo-Iskcon cult after that. Learning that Bimala Prasada gave himself sanyas from a picture just confirms that the IGM is full of pretenders as all their sanyasis continue the deception. Their mantras are duds.
I felt great putting my IGM books away. I couldn’t throw them into the bin, because they have pictures of Krishna in them. I’ll give them to a IGM fanatic someday.
I couldn’t help recalling Malcolm X’s advice to young people about checking out facts for one’s self as you may end up hating people who should be loving and loving people who should be hating. I investigated all those groups that I was told not to look at by the IGM and broadened my study of Indian thought. I have spent the last number of years looking at Shaivism, Tantra, the six darshans, other Vaisnava Sampradayas, and have even looked at atheism. I will never be fooled again.
You mention Srivatsa Goswami as a potential guru if you were looking for one. Who else would be worthy for consideration in your opinion?
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Post by Ramdas on Jan 21, 2020 11:14:42 GMT -6
There are the descriptions in the Puranas of cosmology that has a tortoise with 4 elephants standing on it upholding the univers. If we interpret that metaphorically, there is this possibility: There are 4 forces known to physicists, the weak nuclear, strong nuclear, electromagnetic and gravity. The tortoise? Maybe the fabric of space/time described by Einstein or the Higgs field for the Boson (or God particle)?
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Post by Nitaidas on Jan 21, 2020 17:47:42 GMT -6
There are the descriptions in the Puranas of cosmology that has a tortoise with 4 elephants standing on it upholding the univers. If we interpret that metaphorically, there is this possibility: There are 4 forces known to physicists, the weak nuclear, strong nuclear, electromagnetic and gravity. The tortoise? Maybe the fabric of space/time described by Einstein or the Higgs field for the Boson (or God particle)? Nice idea, Ramdasji. What is it that connects these things (elephants and forces) together except the number? Actually, the tortoise is only holding up the Planet Earth. Read any Terry Pratchett lately? Come join us. Let's discuss.  |
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Post by meeno8 on Jan 21, 2020 18:25:12 GMT -6
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