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Post by meeno8 on Jun 30, 2023 9:52:28 GMT -6
Taking the mythology of the Sanskrit texts, i.e. BP, Ramayana, Mahabharata, literally is just plain silly. Jung and Campbell et al have delved into hidden meaning that have to do with the psychological dimensions and even the subconscious. There there is the level of the super conscious as mentioned in the Vedanta texts. RK et al represent archetypes in a serious analysis of the source texts, as do the various heroes, heroines, villains spread across the corpus going all the way back to the Vedic period. This should be obvious to any rational person. However not all adherents to religious dogma are necessarily all that rational. This does not detract from the tangible benefits of yoga and meditation practices and CV sadhana.
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Post by meeno8 on Jul 1, 2023 9:13:02 GMT -6
Conversely, however, it is interesting that the parallel universes emanating from Garbhodakasayi Vishnu align with modern cosmology. The idea of building a 'Vedic' planetarium based on the BP cosmology of the solar system et al seems patently absurd though. The knowledge at the time of the authorship of that text was far short of our current understanding that keeps pushing the boundaries with each new decade with better and better telescopes. Similarly there is the other end of the spectrum with quantum physics, i.e. that energy and matter are equivalent with Einstein's proven famous equation of energy equals mass times the constant (speed of light) squared.
But the focus of this site is religious mystical experience and the practice of rAgAnugA bhakti sAdhanA. That, it would seem, falls largely under the category of the irrational in many respects. It would behoove us to not just do our bhajan but also apply our critical thinking, which is the rational part of our minds. The ancient texts can provide some insights and answers, but also does the latest research with technology such as fMRI scans of people engaged in meditation like Buddhist monks. In fact in the latter case, those could very well trump the former with respect to objective truth. Subjective truth, gentle readers, is another matter entirely. I would hope you can take your hand off your mAla beads and your noses out of your dusty old texts to ponder this at least. Or ponder it with your hands on the beads.
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Post by meeno8 on Jul 3, 2023 13:07:05 GMT -6
In essence it is about striking a balance between that borne of religious/mystical experience and applying critical thinking, as those are more or less two sides of the same coin. In order to achieve that, one would need to cultivate both. Only relying on the authority of shastra texts as a source of evidence, as well as of knowledge in general, is a very imbalanced approach. Plus there is a lot that is problematic with shastra as a source of evidence, just as at any point in time the limits of scientific evidence are limited in the face of it constantly being pushed beyond current boundaries and subject to revision based on newer theories and experiments. The reason for this thread is the general tone of the posts here, which rely so heavily on the authority of shastra irrespective of the other side of the coin. None of this should be considered controversial, in my view. And I am confident that is a view shared by many, whether they participate on this site or not. Finally, at least the subjective side of things, i.e. experiences from practicing one's bhajan, are not inherently subject to objective verification as with the rational. At least they really shouldn't be.
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