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Post by Nitaidas on Jun 25, 2009 23:07:23 GMT -6
Thats not what the New York Times says. The NYT likes Hedges very much. Wasn't The New York Times your choice source of unbiased information/opinion? Well never mind, I don't believe in Dawkins and you rebute my Hedges right back. So, should I just stop quoting my source and hear only yours or...? I love the NYT, but that doesn't mean I buy everything they have to sell. You can have your Hedges, I don't mind. I also don't mind it if you quote him. Why should I care? Just don't expect me to agree with him on everything. Have I ever insisted that you hear only my sources?
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Post by TJ on Jun 26, 2009 9:33:39 GMT -6
Nitai, I too have said somewhere in this jumble of comments back and forth about Dawkins that you can have your Dawkins, its really not a problem for me if someone is enthusiastic about the guy: Of course Dawkins has got a point - pretty much everyone has got a point. Dawkins has a very good point, actually. But he does not have an answer. You tell me to read Dawkins, but will I not get Krishna if I don't read Dawkins?
Rupa Goswami did not read Dawkins. Yet he had Krishna. And he has the answer for me.
Krishna Consciousness does not come about by intellectual means. It may happen on the principle that bhakti is independent. But Dawkins-like reasonings is never a pre-requisit for bhakti. So lets not make this a matter which it actually isn't.
And btw, calling people stupid is just not what advanced individuals do. Not in spiritual circles, definitely not in academic circles. Do that at your university job and see if you are still hired next day.
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Post by Aranya on Jun 26, 2009 10:11:49 GMT -6
I want to say this: there are soft cops and though cops. Gaudiya religion needs both. Nitai is doing his job, making sure certain things stay in line.
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Post by StephMeyer on Jun 26, 2009 16:51:13 GMT -6
I'm thinking of writing a new novel about vampires in medieval Bengal.
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Post by Nitaidas on Jun 27, 2009 11:35:02 GMT -6
Nitai, I too have said somewhere in this jumble of comments back and forth about Dawkins that you can have your Dawkins, its really not a problem for me if someone is enthusiastic about the guy: Of course Dawkins has got a point - pretty much everyone has got a point. Dawkins has a very good point, actually. But he does not have an answer. You tell me to read Dawkins, but will I not get Krishna if I don't read Dawkins? Rupa Goswami did not read Dawkins. Yet he had Krishna. And he has the answer for me.Krishna Consciousness does not come about by intellectual means. It may happen on the principle that bhakti is independent. But Dawkins-like reasonings is never a pre-requisit for bhakti. So lets not make this a matter which it actually isn't. And btw, calling people stupid is just not what advanced individuals do. Not in spiritual circles, definitely not in academic circles. Do that at your university job and see if you are still hired next day. I am not telling you to read Dawkins. There is no reason for you to read Dawkins unless you think, as I do, that something interesting might be going on in these new forms of religious atheism. If, however, you plan to blast or criticize Dawkins then you definitely should read him carefully before doing that. Otherwise, don't bother with him. Rupa Goswami may not have read Dawkins, but he read lots of other people and they all contributed in some way to the service he performed for Mahaprabhu. Surely you don't think Rupa invented the idea of rasa or even of bhakti-rasa. It goes back at least a millennium before him, and he read those writers even though many of them were not bhaktas of Krsna. I don't think one can really understand and appreciate what Rupa has done unless one reads those other writers too. Failing that people make up some real nonsense about him in their abject ignorance. Who wants Krsna Concsciousness? That is a foolish and misleading concept. You should forget about it as soon as you can. I don't know about you, but I want Krsna-rati, aka Krsna-prema-bhakti. The way to cultivate that is partially intellectual because it very much involves the mind. If you don't think intellect is important why should you even read Rupa? The fact is that Krsna-bhakti is a form of knowledge and therefore has strong intellectual components. This anti-intellectualism and anti-scholarly attitude that is fostered and promoted in IGM is one of the most pernicious of its memeplexes. Look how Advaitadas has been unable to get beyond that one. He is just an IGM anti-intellectual in a fake baba form. First they want to cut off your legs and then they ask you to run a mile. Some of the greatest siddhas of the last century were also great scholars of the tradition: Manohar Das Babaji, Pandit Ramkrishna Das Babaji, Haridas Das Babaji. I would also add Prabhupad Prangopal Goswami, Prabhupad Nrsimhavallabha Goswami and many others. Again I see this anti-intellectualism as another excuse for laziness. Look, do you think it is a pleasure for me to call you stupid? Stop forcing me to do it! I know you are smart, yet you do and say stupid things. What other recourse do I have? I would certainly rather praise you, but I won't do it falsely. By the way, it happens in academic circles all the time. I guess you have no idea.
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Post by TJ on Jun 27, 2009 12:30:57 GMT -6
What do you mean by I do stupid things? How the heck do you know what I do or do not do?
As for my words here, I have never said I am against intellectualism or that I disapprove of reading academic works. I said something else which you twisted again to suit your ravings against IGM. Why is it always about IGM? Address my arguments, not IGM. I have my opinion despite IGM. And if here and there I seem to speak as if carrying a meme from my experience in IGM, its most probably just coincidence: sometimes they may get it, you know, right. I am very conscious of the IGM style of thinking and acting. I am lucky that it doesn't bother me one way or another. Well, it does bother me where it is absurd and/or abusive. But I am not extreme like yourself to the point of rejecting IGM irrationally. There is a difference in the tow approachs. If I happen to indeed be under the influence of a meme from IGM, still, I don't partake of your wholesale fanatic rejection of those institutions. Some of those memes are just harmless. In fact I can see you yourself still carry some of it! I will say it again, its foolish to dismiss those insitutions absolutely. Its irrational even. A true researcher would consider things more dettatchedly.
As for people calling one another 'stupid', its just not what sophisticated or noble people do. It happens "all the time" in "academic" circles, you say? Yeah well I was talking about a different class of academics.
So I am not forcing you to call me stupid. You do on your own. Like, I am not finding you to be that accomplished yourself. But I will never call you stupid. Not even if... Well, I just don't think it appropriate, not matter how much I may disagree with you.
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Post by Nitaidas on Jun 27, 2009 13:13:26 GMT -6
Well what does this mean then?
In the first place I object to your characterizing that as a worthwhile goal. But given that, you clearly say that the goal does not come about by "intellectual" means. What do you mean here? I can't believe I have wasted so much time answering you. You clearly are not willing to admit to anything honestly. I suspect this conversation is over. I've put as much time into it as I want to.
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Post by TJ on Jun 27, 2009 13:47:42 GMT -6
I am not being dishonest! You misread me, perhaps on purpose. And indeed the conversation drags on. But you made a couple of questions so I will respond.
KC does not come about by intellectual means.
Nowhere in this statement it says that the speaker is against intellectualism. You added that yourself. The statement addresses the fact that bhakti is ultimately beyond reason although, astonishingly, to get beyond reason one MUST employ reason in all its potentiality.
As for the term KC, change that to whatever you prefer to call it, it makes no difference to me - its just language: Yeah, if you are really honest yourself about this exchange you would make a fuss over semantics: you know we are really talking about the same thing.
So... au revoir then?
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Post by TJ on Jun 27, 2009 13:57:25 GMT -6
correction: You would NOT make a fuss over semantics.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2009 15:01:25 GMT -6
Reading David Cross's upcoming I Drink For A Reason , coming out in hardcover in August, mon. Here's a little sneak preview:
"Man, it must be so frustrating to be the smartest cow in the slaughterhouse field, or be the smartest cow in history, for that matter. I'm assuming that cows, like people and dogs, have varying degrees of intelligence. So at some point there was a cow of superior advanced intelligence running around a slaughterhouse somewhere that had figured out what was going on. That death was imminent, and all their masters were not benevolent nurturers but rather evil murderers luring them to their deaths. But they couldn't communicate this to the other cows because all the other cows were of average cow intelligence - i.e., stupid. Maybe even the cow was smart enough to know that he was just a cow and would never be able to impart the sense of urgency needed to escape because cows are stupid. Must've been maddening. Also, I wonder if we'd be less prone to eating beef if the noise a cow makes sounded less like 'moo' and more like 'help'. Probably not. They're ..."
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Post by Gora on Jun 28, 2009 8:48:22 GMT -6
Stephy, may I suggest this extremely intellectual line for your heroine as the vampire tells her they can't possibly be a couple:
"humph, I want to be with you, like, as-tah-deen..."
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Post by Nitaidas on Jun 28, 2009 12:28:45 GMT -6
I've managed to lay my hands on a rare jewel called Mahamantra by Sundarananda Das (Vidyavinode). Did not know it existed a few weeks ago. It is a wonderful treatment based on the available textual sources of the place and nature of the Mahamantra in CV practice based on how Mahaprabhu used to use it in practice. I will post translations of parts of it here as I read it over the next few weeks.
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Post by Ekantin on Jun 30, 2009 20:50:07 GMT -6
After that awaits Dawkins' book The God Delusion. I've had that one for a while, too. Again the rants leveled at him in this and other forums are clearly by people who have never read anything by him. Whether I wind up agreeing with him or not, at least it will be on the basis of having read him. I hope you enjoy that book, Nitai. I read it twice, the first and second editions (supposedly updated, but negligible) and there were at least two incidences where Dawkins' astute observations on the silliness of organised religion made me laugh out loud, maybe because they were apt observations of things that have happened in CV. Thanks, Sakhicharan, for your link and info. Very interesting.
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Post by Satsang on Jul 1, 2009 11:46:35 GMT -6
I am reading The Great Secret, by Osho, which are a collection of talks on the poems of Kabir.
Tale of love, untellable (sic). Not a bit's ever told. The sweets of a dumb one - he enjoys...and smiles. Kabir
Osho's comment: These sutras are filled with love. Kabir says that whosoever givs up his head attains love, that clouds of love shower down on such a man, drenching his soul - so much so that it overflows into an abundant sharing with others. He also says love is such freedom that not even the desire for liberation remains. Love is the highest kind of liveration, and when one achieves love even the desire for moksha, for ultimate freedom, disapears.
It is difficult to put what Kabir wishes to express into words. It is virtually impossible. Only he who knows, knows. Only he who lives in love knows. It is a matter of personal experience. That is why Kabir says love is like a sweet tasted by one who is dumb. When a man who s dumb eats a sweet, he simply enjoys it and smiles. If you ask him, "What is the matter? why are you smiling?" he cannot express his feeling in words, he can only keep on smiling. And so the man who has drunk pure love also smiles. He is also dumb; he is also at a loss to express his joy. He is so filled with the taste that even the experience has disappeared. If you can understand his smile then you will know it is the only way he can indicate his feeling of great joy.
Go to the enilghtened ones, to the men of wisdom. Don't worry too much aobut what they say, but be alert and through enough to see what they are. Their very beings are indicative. What they are is not something that can be put into words. The enlightened man is like the man who is dumb and eats a sweet; he simply smiles after he has tasted it.
To sit at the feet of the enlightened man, at the feet of the masters, is the only meaning of the word satsang. "
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Post by Nitaidas on Jul 1, 2009 17:39:50 GMT -6
After that awaits Dawkins' book The God Delusion. I've had that one for a while, too. Again the rants leveled at him in this and other forums are clearly by people who have never read anything by him. Whether I wind up agreeing with him or not, at least it will be on the basis of having read him. I hope you enjoy that book, Nitai. I read it twice, the first and second editions (supposedly updated, but negligible) and there were at least two incidences where Dawkins' astute observations on the silliness of organised religion made me laugh out loud, maybe because they were apt observations of things that have happened in CV. Thanks, Sakhicharan, for your link and info. Very interesting. I am enjoying the book so far. As I said before, I am finding it to be enormously religious, just not a form of religiosity connected with any sort of personal God. The wonders of the universe are really the source of Dawkins inspiration and sense of awe and reverence. To suggest that there is a God behind all that would be an insult to and a belittling of that sense of wonder.
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