Plato's Symposium or Drinking Party

[Nitaidas]

Here is a link to an online version of Plato's Symposium. Please read it over when you have time. I have always thought that if Caitanya Vaisnavas ever sought natural allies in the world of religion and philosophy it would have to be with the so-called "pagans" of ancient Greece and Rome. Find at etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/p/plato/p71sy/index.html Plato's reflection on love and its divine sources.

[Nitaidas]

I didn't realize it, but there are several bonuses in making Plato's Symposium the model of this forum. In the first place, it is about love. The forum too is about love and in a way about the way in which love uplifts a person the way the love for Krsna uplifts a person. As I have been rereading the text, I can't help but think of Krsna every time the god of love is mentioned in the text. There too it is said at the very beginning that for some reason the god of love, though the most powerful of the gods, is the one who is rarely singled out for praise. One is reminded of Narada's admonition to Vyasa at the beginning of the Bhagavata that though he has expounded dharma, he has not sufficiently expounded Bhagavata dharma and thus he feels oddly ill at ease.

I specially like the speech of Aristophanes which his peculiar understanding of how the human race evolved. The bifurcation at the beginning of the hermaphrodite beings into male and female remind one of that wonderful passage of the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad wherein Brahman. large, the size of a male and female joined together, split into two and become the primordial male and female through which all the sexed species are created.

There is a great deal of resonance between the Indic texts and the Greek texts, no doubt because of the Indo-European inheritance.

This is something I would like to explore more as time goes on.

[kingcobra]

If I had arms, I would raise a stein in toasting this discussion. May we all swim in a swift flowing cascade of prema!

[Nitaidas]

Can you use your tail? Your stein awaits you!

[kingcobra]

Whever I have attempted using my tail to lift a stein, it throws me off balance tipping the stein and spilling its contents.