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Post by Nitaidas on Sept 4, 2010 22:24:39 GMT -6
Who left the windows open and let this arrogant insect in? Now she is flying between two scholars and doing all kinds of buzzng. Where is that fly swatter when you need it?  Gerardji, adrs is an old friend of mine. We go back some years now and her husband is also a good friend. But I have to say. Sometimes I just don't have any idea what she is getting on about. This is one of those. The only thing for it is to love her and try to keep from getting her upset. Oh and please stop God from killing cats. Cats are loved around here. It must that durned hot-head Yahweh. He's always making threats. Anyway, where were we? I wouldn't blame Tulsi Das. I think this happens to pretty much all traditions. Once they acquire property and followings, they become institutions with aspirations to longevity. Charisma becomes institutionalized and some of that excitement and fervor of the early days gets lost. That is why periodic reforms are so important to religious traditions. Look at how many times Buddhist has switched gears over its long history. Theravada, Mayayana, Tantrayana, Sahajayana, Chan, Zen. Each arose in response to challenge and decay in the older tradition. CV has also undergone such changes and transformations, perhaps less pronounced, but nevertheless important for keeping it current. It is not the same tradition it was 500 years ago, no matter how much people talk about following the Goswamis. Caste Goswamis, Babajis, Bhagavata-saptahas, Lila-smarana, these are all later developments. The caste question got lost in the shuffle. The current challenges are science and atheism, both of which I love dearly. That is why I am so interested in the atheistic dimensions of CV and in rejecting the dualism and supernaturalism that is so rampant in the various theisms that abound. Since we are both an abheda and a bheda tradition I think we may have the resources to overcome dualism and still remain true to our core beliefs. Anyway, if CV cannot pass the test of science I may have to bury it. As Stephen Hawkings recently said: Science will win because it works. How is that book you were waiting on by Philip Clayton? Is there anything illuminating on the subject of panentheism in it. I am thinking about that part of my introduction in Kanupriya's book. I want to try to place CV theology somewhere in the spectrum of Western Theology. Panentheism and/or Process theology seem the more likely places. I am reading Cobb, Griffin, Meland, and some others to try to find my bearings. The alternative is to simply say that CV theology has developed in its own ways and bears little or merely superficial resemblance to anything called theology in the West. Considering how roundly theology has been beaten up by scientists and philosophers like Dawkins and Dennett, perhaps it is better to steer clear of Western theology. Anyway, just curious what if anything you found in Clayton's book. |
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Post by Nitaidas on Sept 5, 2010 13:58:24 GMT -6
if i had the karma of Hawkins, i'd be an atheist. You mean his having the sharpest mind on the planet? Yeah, if I had that kind of brain I would be an atheist, too, without all the waffling I do. That is my karma, not smart enough to be an atheist and not dumb enough for blind faith. |
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Post by Nitaidas on Sept 5, 2010 14:02:37 GMT -6
exposing people to CV is an admirable thing. they must be favorable or faithful though. it is cautioned that one should "preach" to the unfaithful. it is only krishna seated within who could change a person's heart. we can't be so attached to results. ys, the buzzing bee. It's the same thing with science. No matter how reasonable and logical one is, if the horse got no sense, it will just neigh and try to kick you. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2010 1:03:05 GMT -6
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Post by gerard on Sept 6, 2010 10:56:19 GMT -6
How is that book you were waiting on by Philip Clayton? Is there anything illuminating on the subject of panentheism in it. I am thinking about that part of my introduction in Kanupriya's book. I want to try to place CV theology somewhere in the spectrum of Western Theology. Panentheism and/or Process theology seem the more likely places. I am reading Cobb, Griffin, Meland, and some others to try to find my bearings. The alternative is to simply say that CV theology has developed in its own ways and bears little or merely superficial resemblance to anything called theology in the West. Considering how roundly theology has been beaten up by scientists and philosophers like Dawkins and Dennett, perhaps it is better to steer clear of Western theology. Anyway, just curious what if anything you found in Clayton's book. I didn't make a dent yet in Dayton's book. It is actually a collection of articles by 18 authors in the fields of (Christian) Theology and the Philosophy of Religion. So just a few remarks. The title is from Acts 17: 28. Paul seemed to have been a panentheist (P), but the full verse is: "'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said..". In the footnote to this verse in a bible I have it says that these poets were Aratus and Kleantes from about 300 B.C. Several types of P are mentioned: 1. participatory P. 2. 'divine energies' P. 3. ecclesial or communal P. 4. eschatological or soteriological P. 5. sapiential P. 6. emergintist P. 7. sacramental P. 8. trinitarian P. 9. pan-sacramental naturalistic P. 10. process or dipolar P. 11. 'body of God' P. (Ramanuja) 12. Neopanentheism 13.Pansytheism I give this list just to give an impression what the theologists are already making out of P. I would like to add transpanentheism. They also make a lot of the preposition "in" in pan entheism. One of the most striking features of P. is the passibility of God, the possibility of God to suffer, not only in the meaning of Christ on the Cross, but also in the sense of: it is the nature of authentic love to suffer the response of the beloved. In other words God is capable of being influenced by human beings. (In classical theism that was not case, God was not passible.) But they do not simply relate as two personal lovers because the latter is also in the body of the former. Another important point: it may be in the nature of God-as-love which necessitates the creation of persons who are genuinely other than God, whose existence makes relational, mutual love possible, and so makes possible the realization of God's nature as love. Insofar as that element of "otherness" is indissoluble, it may seem hard to call finite persons "parts" (Gita 15.5) of God. That would seem to deny their "otherness". Process thinkers stress that God's knowledge, if it is to be the greatest possible knowledge, must include the actual experience of all finite beings, so that their experences are "parts" of a wider experience. But God cannot experience things exactly as finite persons do. European philosophers have often held that the effect must in some way be like the cause (a thing cannot cause something totally unlike itself, according to Aristotle), and the cause must be at least as great in reality as its effects. So Aquinas held that God, the cause of the world, must contain in the divine being the natures of all created things, though in a higher and more perfect manner. Nevertheless, they have held that though God is the efficient cause of the world, God is not the material cause of the world. The stuff of which the world is made, matter itself, is quite different from God, who is wholly immaterial. So although European philosophers have tended to affirm that in some remote sense God and the world are similar, they have insisted that they are made of different stuff (spirit and matter, respectively). Indian philosophers, on the other hand, have often assumed that matter must, like everything, arise from God, and so it must be contained in the divine being. This view is held in conjunction with a general cosmology for which matter exists without beginning or end, arising from Brahman, and in some way expressing what Brahman is. Ramanuja's distinctive way of putting this is to say that the universe and individual souls are all parts of the body of God, the material expression of the being of Brahman. Brahman necessarily has a body. The universe arises from Brahman by inner necessity. Yet Brahman wills it to be, and it is the "joyful play" of the Supreme Lord. Some universe has always existed. More precisely, this universe is one of an infinite series of universes, which alternate with states when all universes are hidden in Brahman in unmanifest form. It is important to see what Ramanuja means by "body" in this context. He writes that a body is completely under the control of the self. So if the universe is the body of the Lord, it is completely under the control of the Supreme Self, and the Lord is as close to it as the human self is to the human body, present to every part immediately. The body is that through which the self acts and expresses itself, and the vehicle of sense-knowledge. So the universe is that through which the Lord acts and expresses the divine self, and by means of which the Lord has knowledge of material things in their particularity and diversity. The universe and the Lord are one, as the body is one with the self. But one must be clear that for Ramanuja this means that the universe is totally under the control of God, and is that by which God expresses a small part of the infinite divine nature. Of all the millions of souls which exist, as parts of God, only some exist in this material universe. For this is a universe in which souls come under the sway of ignorance ( avidya) or illusion, thinking that they are quite different from the Supreme Self and devoting themselves to the pursuit of sensual pleasures. When they come to knowledge of what their true nature is, they will be released from the round of reincarnations in the material universe, and live in a paradisal world in which they will be fully aware that they are parts of the body of God, and will delight in being servants of the Supreme Lord, members of his body in a fully obedient and conscious way. I didn't get to the scientific part at all yet. |
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Post by Nitaidas on Sept 6, 2010 13:46:15 GMT -6
Oh! This is the same book I have been looking at. For some reason I thought you had a more recent book by Clayton. Yes, this is a collection of papers from a conference sponsored by the Templeton Foundation. Thanks anyway for your summary. It appears from this volume that Panentheism is really in a state of flux at present. And, very little is said from a non-Christian perspective, though the Gita is quoted on one of the front-piece pages. Yes, and there is Ward's use of Ramanuja. Still, the body of God? That always seemed to me so implausible. And how does that really help us? A metaphor is supposed to make things clearer. The relationship of the soul to the body is far from clear and I don't really think we can say that the body is fully under the control of the soul. The soul or consciousness, if you will, is conscious of very little of what goes on in the body.. it is strange that the body metaphor should pop up in Panentheism.
Hartshorne's Philosophers Speak About God might be more useful in the long run. Perhaps I am better off reading people who have actually struggled with the relationship between Hindu theology and Christian theology (Clooney, Keith Ward, and this other fellow Michael Myers). Still, I have a lot of this Panentheistic book to read yet. Based on the first few essays, though, I am not too hopeful for anything really illuminating.
One more thought. Is Krsna really passible as he is represented in the Gita or any of the other literature? Despite his being in all beings and all beings being in him, he is unaffected, that is, impassible. It seems to me that we had this discussion in another context not all that long ago. For some reason Sri Jiva Goswami comes to mind. Anyone recall?
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Post by gerard on Sept 7, 2010 6:15:25 GMT -6
Yes, that metaphor of the body of God hasn’t helped me much either. In the Bhagavatam there are descriptions of a Vishnu more or less representing the solar system rather than the cosmos with sun and moon for His eyes and trees as His hair on His body etc. It has a somewhat childish tone to it, I always thought.
In regard to science and theology, what's problem? It seems rather simple to me that you can combine Darwinian evolutionism and all the devas and devis you want to guide the entire process. The devas are just invisible to us, science can never prove or disprove them, they do not belong to the field of science where you can measure and weight things.
And science is still coming up with rather silly remarks. Hawking in his latest book “The Grand Design” writes: "It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."
That is exactly what Laplace already said in 1803 to Napoleon, and:
"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist."
That is a rather strange reasoning. If there is nothing there is no law of gravity either.
“Spontaneous creation is the reason…” ? Is Hawking getting teleological in his old age or does he mean ‘cause’ in stead of ‘reason’? and ‘how’ in stead of ‘why’?
When Krishna in the Gita says that Arjuna is very dear to Him, and bhaktas and jnanis are very dear to Him also, is that not an indication that He is affected in some way by them? or in 10. 11, teṣām evānukampārtham aham, out of compassion for them I destroy the darkness…
I wondered, Nitaiji, is Deism not a more appropriate School of thought for you?
Wikipedia:
"Deism is a religious and philosophical belief that a supreme being created the universe, and that this (and religious truth in general) can be determined using reason and observation of the natural world alone, without the need for either faith or organized religion. Many Deists reject the notion that God intervenes in human affairs, for example through miracles and revelations. These views contrast with the dependence on revelations, miracles, and faith found in many Jewish, Christian, Islamic and other theistic teachings."
You would still have to contend with that Supreme Being though.
I often lean toward that opinion but haven’t made much study of it, it seems rather boring and bleak.
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Post by Nitaidas on Sept 8, 2010 11:19:36 GMT -6
Yes, that metaphor of the body of God hasn’t helped me much either. In the Bhagavatam there are descriptions of a Vishnu more or less representing the solar system rather than the cosmos with sun and moon for His eyes and trees as His hair on His body etc. It has a somewhat childish tone to it, I always thought. Well, that is of course the influence of the Purusa-sukta hymn of the Rg Veda (10.90). It has been enormously influential in the later Hindu tradition. It is revisited many times in the Bhagavata and continues a tradition of reflection on the hymn that can be traced from the Vedas down through the Upanisads, Gita, and Bhagavata. One could argue that the whole of Hinduism is the result of meditation and interpretation of that hymn. I guess that could be where the idea of the universe as the body of God comes from. But in the original it is much more subtle than that and definitely teaches a unity of being. God or Purusa represents the sum total of everything. We are all part of him, his different heads if you will, not just his body, part of him himself. And this vast manifest world amounts to only one-fourth of his full nature. In this sense it is very suggestive of Panentheism. Yes, I suppose you are right. One can accept evolution and the results of mathematical physics and still believe in the gods. The thing is: what use are they? They are unnecessary for the proper functioning of the world. Everything is taken care of by the laws of nature. And as Hawkings points out we don't even need a law-giver. They aren't those kinds of laws. Science does not disprove them. It just makes them unnecessary. So what use do they have apart from controlling the powers of nature? So Krsna may be the source of everything, the possessor of all the power, but he chooses not to interfere with things. This is actually quite a blessing, if you think about it. We can drop all our demands of him, that he bend the laws of nature to accomplish something for us. We can therefore approach him without any desire for gain or benefit, causelessly, as the texts recommend. Perhaps that is his real purpose: to reveal himself in our minds, because that is the world of consciousness, and leave the rest of the world alone, the course of which he may or may not have established beyond time and beyond our abilities to know. I don't find this silly at all. What is it that you find silly about it? But presumably Hawkings has better evidence for it. Laplace's statement was more or less a wild guess. One must wonder what his evidence is. Is he just trying to provoke the theists or does he have some more solid reasons for saying this? I have ordered the book to see what that evidence may be. You hair-splitter you! Perhaps. But in that case he contradicts himself. He really is affected by things and yet he says he isn't. Of course, I don't really believe that this is Krsna speaking. This is someone else imagining what Krsna might say or what he would like Krsna to say. Naw. I find that too boring too. I like my idea of Krsna the para-scientific god. He is here not to make or unmake the world, that is already taken care of, but to play in our consciousness and draw our love and affection.to himself. Everything and everyone else we might love is impermanent. |
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Post by gerard on Sept 10, 2010 7:43:09 GMT -6
Yes, the Purusa-sukta has been tremendously influential. Some like S. Dasgupta see the possible beginning of the avatar theory already there (possibly verse 4, one quarter of Him here came into being again ) and there is the beginning of the caste-system. But I agree you could make the case of Panentheism in the PS if you like.
If the devas control the powers of nature I wouldn't call them unnecessary, seems rather important to me.
I thought it a little silly as Laplace had already stated that. And Laplace didn't think it a wild guess, he was very convinced of his case.
I pick some more hairs and split various nits if I feel like it. For instance:
Hawking even has "Design" in the title of that book! How teleological can you get, or get into the field of "Intelligent Design" which is virtually the same as creationism?
Krishna does contradict Himself some times:
9.4 matsthani sarvabhutani all beings abide in Me
and
9.5 na ca matsthani bhutani and not all beings abide in Me
That is for us human beings to solve, I suppose. But I do believe that the Kurukshetra War actually did take place. And maybe even in 3000 B.C. but not in our physical plane. Ordinary human beings wouldn't have been able to see it happen; it might have been a War in the Heavens.
(If you look at the biographies of the persons involved you'll see that nobody was born a normal human being. Sons of Indra and other devas, people born in buckets, people born from Ganga-devi, people born from a piece of stone that had to be broken up into a hundred and one pieces and put into bowls with water. Where are the human beings? So why do so many people believe it took place on this physical plane?)
That might have been recorded in the astral field, whatever that is, and only later, perhaps between 800 B.C. and 100 B.C. been read or seen by yogis who became proficient in that. Only then the Gita entered human history. Some human elements might have entered the texts then.
Or that War did not take place 3000 B.C. but later and was seen by yogis and rishis as it took place.Then you don't need the Akashic Chronicle to explain events.
Or it is nitya-lila and any tattva-darshina can see it any time, any place.
Of course the boring solution remains to read the texts as allegories, like Gandhi did and some others. And I must admit that when I read the Ramayana I find it very difficult not to read that as an allegory.
I like this also. I always thought that Brahma-samhita 5.2, sahasra-patra-kamalam gokulakhyam mahat padam, "this eternal, transcendental abode of Gokula exists in the form of a lotus flower with thousand petals", refers to the crown chakra and there we shall, God willing, experience the Krishna-lila.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2010 10:01:02 GMT -6
Jay Nitai,
Excellent insight Gerard ji.
Thank you.
Jay Nitai
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Post by Nitaidas on Sept 10, 2010 11:29:38 GMT -6
If the devas control the powers of nature I wouldn't call them unnecessary, seems rather important to me. Don't the laws of nature do that? If there were gods doing it it would have some visible repercussions and that would be evidence for their existence. No visible repercussions and the laws do just fine. So, there is no need to bother with them. Even if they did exist and struggled every single moment to force the unruly forces of nature to obey the laws, all we really need is to understand the laws. I am sure he was convinced of it. The evidence then was very thin. Now there is much more of it. I was just remarking at how he was convinced on such slim evidence. But the principle is the same. God is a hypothesis that no one needs any more. Yes, he is in a way pandering to that audience. Even the great have their weaknesses. Perhaps, to it is just that audience who is most in need of his message: that God is unnecessary. Dawkins and Dennett repeatedly point out that when they use words like "design" they don't really mean that there is any designer. What other plane is there? The so-called spiritual plane is just a fiction. What evidence is there for that? I think we need to rid CV of such antiquated ideas and look to modern physics to try to understand these things. Perhaps it all happened in another dimension. There are apparently nine or ten of them according to string theory. They are all right here but rolled up in some geometrical way that makes them invisible to our current way of perceiving the world. They are not spiritual, but physical realities, Why not present it like this then? Instead of as real historical events? There are indications in the Bhagavata that suggest that its basis was a cosmic vision of some sort, attributed to Vyasa, but almost certainly the experience of someone else. Why mislead us? Wouldn't it be grand to know something about this savant or savants who really wrote the Bhagavata? That way we can read into the texts pretty much whatever we want to promote. It might be good. Something good might be promoted, perhaps better than what was actually there. Then we have to discuss what consciousness is and what it means for Krsna and his lila to be cinmaya. A non-dualistic CV, that is the challenge of the 21st century. |
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Post by Nitaidas on Sept 10, 2010 14:03:59 GMT -6
This one is good, too.  |
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Post by JD33 on Sept 10, 2010 15:54:40 GMT -6
Now that I think about it I agree that maybe all the revelation happens in consciousness. But what that means is that we might see the energetic contribution Devas make. When they manisfest in some way the world becomes a brighter, happier, more real, meaningful and engaged place to be. At least for us who are interested in such things.
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Post by gerard on Sept 11, 2010 7:09:38 GMT -6
What other plane is there? The so-called spiritual plane is just a fiction. What evidence is there for that? I think we need to rid CV of such antiquated ideas and look to modern physics to try to understand these things. Perhaps it all happened in another dimension. There are apparently nine or ten of them according to string theory. They are all right here but rolled up in some geometrical way that makes them invisible to our current way of perceiving the world. They are not spiritual, but physical realities, Why not present it like this then? Instead of as real historical events? There are indications in the Bhagavata that suggest that its basis was a cosmic vision of some sort, attributed to Vyasa, but almost certainly the experience of someone else. Why mislead us? Wouldn't it be grand to know something about this savant or savants who really wrote the Bhagavata? I don't understand you here, Nitaiji. You call the spiritual plane 'fiction'. Do you in your atheist philosophy only accept 'non-spiritual dimensions' or a 'multi-dimensional physical plane' as part of a non-dualistic CV? No distinction between spiritual worlds (planes, dimensions) and material worlds, only 'worlds'? Wouldn't the language of mysticism become very unclear then? Hasn't that language sprung up because of the experiences of the mystics and the saints ( the advaitins excluded here)? Or are the experiences of those mystics and saints also fiction in your opinion? |
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Post by Nitaidas on Sept 11, 2010 12:52:02 GMT -6
What other plane is there? The so-called spiritual plane is just a fiction. What evidence is there for that? I think we need to rid CV of such antiquated ideas and look to modern physics to try to understand these things. Perhaps it all happened in another dimension. There are apparently nine or ten of them according to string theory. They are all right here but rolled up in some geometrical way that makes them invisible to our current way of perceiving the world. They are not spiritual, but physical realities, Why not present it like this then? Instead of as real historical events? There are indications in the Bhagavata that suggest that its basis was a cosmic vision of some sort, attributed to Vyasa, but almost certainly the experience of someone else. Why mislead us? Wouldn't it be grand to know something about this savant or savants who really wrote the Bhagavata? I don't understand you here, Nitaiji. You call the spiritual plane 'fiction'. Do you in your atheist philosophy only accept 'non-spiritual dimensions' or a 'multi-dimensional physical plane' as part of a non-dualistic CV? No distinction between spiritual worlds (planes, dimensions) and material worlds, only 'worlds'? Wouldn't the language of mysticism become very unclear then? Hasn't that language sprung up because of the experiences of the mystics and the saints ( the advaitins excluded here)? Or are the experiences of those mystics and saints also fiction in your opinion? Gerardji, I don't know if you've noticed, but the worlds that those mystics and saints occupied no longer exist. We live in a different world now. For most of them the world was flat and circular and had an up and a down, an inside and an outside. When they went to describe their experiences they used terms and categories drawn from the worlds they were brought up in and none of those apply any longer. Spirit/matter, mind/body, these are ideas that no longer apply. They are meaningless. We live in a world that features relativity, quantum uncertainty, non-locality, multiverses, more and new dimensions, and so forth. Our big project should be to learn to occupy this new world, though our understanding of it is still evolving, and translate those old accounts into accounts that are meaningful in the new worldview. Spiritual plane no longer cuts it. No, the language has not sprung up because of the experiences of mystics. They expressed their experiences as best they could in the languages they had and those languages were shaped by the dominant worldviews of their times. So I don't say that their experiences were fiction, though some of them may have been (Swedenborg?), but that they have been expressed in outmoded ways of talking and thinking about the world. They are in serious need of translation, but many of us, maybe most, do not ourselves occupy the new world. So how can we do it? Look at that thread under Books called Space-Time and Beyond to get a sense of what I mean. I should perhaps move that to the Physics and CV section. |
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