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Post by Your Servant on Jul 11, 2009 14:25:01 GMT -6
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Post by Nitaidas on Jul 11, 2009 14:48:58 GMT -6
Mäster!! You have rhecturrrn'dd!!!!!!! ;D I feel like I ought to take a bow or something. Hope I have not disappointed you, brother.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 11, 2009 15:25:07 GMT -6
I will begin comments here by addressing this one very pertinent detail in Malati's post: " Maybe after finishing our bhajan we can have a read of the...article." I don't mean to nit pick and sidetrack but, as said, I think this point is very pertinent. In fact, I think it is very telling of whether it merits getting into discussing the rest of the post at al. First of, what does it mean that one "finishes" one's bhajan? In principle bhajan is uninterrupted, anushilanam. So for the actual bhajanya, reading an article is also bhajan. So where is the question of first going to "do" bhajan, as if you go and take care of some transaction, and then you get your intellect going afterwards as a separte activity? This 'understanding' of bhajan is in principle faulty. So, what can be really added by developing an opinion based on such false premise? Then there is the "our" bhajan. Why the assumption that everyone's bhajan is uniform? For example, Nitai likes to think that Dawkins, by his ideas, worships what most people would call God. It must be conceded to Nitai that, if such worship is indeed sprung out from the soul - it is indeed a form of bhajan! Yes there are rules for worship/rituals, there are traditions, but if one is going to get into a discussion of the merits of specific ideas and events vis a vis bhajan, then please do not say, "lets first finish our bhajan and then 'after' look into these ideas". Once you finish your bhajan, my friend, you finish your source of life including your power of reasoning and understanding. Better keep that bhajan going alight like the grand olympic torch of the soul. ;D Well, I guess I better weigh in here. First of all, thanks to Malati for posting this interesting article and raising the question of "modernizing" the case for God. The article, at least those parts I have read seems reasonably accurate, though dated. I guess I should start by commenting on Deva's nit-picking. It is nit-picky but it raises a good question and one that we should entertain for a while whether we ever actually come to an agreement on it or not. What do we mean by bhajan? It is clear it means different things to different people. To some people, myself and probably Malati included, it means a particular set of practices that we do everyday, on the basis of the instructions and/or examples of our gurudevas, and thus when we say we have finished our bhajan we mean that we have finished that daily set of practices, not our "bhajan" in the large sense of eternal worship of R and K and G. I am sure that this is what Malati meant and thus Deva was being somewhat dishonest in taking her in a sense other than her obvious one. Yes, there is the assumption that we are all doing bhajan of some sort and that is probably not true, at least not in the more restricted sense mentioned above. But Malati was just being generous there, I think. There is of course always the sense that none of us can claim to being really doing bhajan. Real bhajan is something rare and really special. There is a kind of amusing story that Jagadish and i just encountered in our work on a hagiography of the great bhajananandi guru Siddha Manohar Das Babaji. Here is an excerpt: One day around 9 or 10 in the morning, Krishna Dassji was sitting doing mala and I (Navadvipa Das) said: "Dada, there is no limit to your good fortune. You are the descendant of Brahmins. Celibate since you were a child. You have visited the four (major) holy places. You have taken to the practice of renunciation and are serving your Gurudev. Moreover you are doing bhajan."
Krsna Dassji replied: "Yes, Dada, but it is certainly by the grace of all of you that I do bhajan."
Behind us Maharaj-ji (Siddha Manohar Das Babaji) had come silently to the tulsi bush and was standing. We had not noticed him. In a voice deep as a cloud he said: "What? Krishna Dass? You are doing bhajan?"
I stood up in surprise and prostrated before him and Krishna Dass in embarrassment turned red all the way to his ears.
I said: "But Krishna Dassji does bhajan. If he does not do bhajan, then who else does?"
Maharaj-ji replied in a pensive mood: "It is not bhajan; it is the conceit of bhajan. Do you know anything about what bhajan is?"
I replied: "Sir, if you do not tell us how will we know?"
The answer was that when any thought other than a thought about Bhagavan strikes one like poison, burns like a fire in the mind---in that mind there is bhajan. In that kind of mind absorption in Bhagavan is given the name bhajan. Hearing that answer I remained silent for awhile. In this sense of bhajan nobody who frequents this site really does bhajan. If you are constantly aware of the absolute nature of reality, knowing that everything is one with and 100% controlled by RK, then everything you see and experience -- be it this forum, or anywhere else, internally or externally -- will be a meditation on the presence of RK. The reciprocation of absolute reality to you, showing that control and presence, keeping you remembering what you really are and where you really are and what is really going on (RK is everything and controlling everything) that is real bhajan.
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Post by Deva on Jul 11, 2009 18:41:19 GMT -6
Real bhajan is very special but why should it be rare? The very uniqueness of Mahaprabhu's gift is in it being simultaneously very rare and easily availabe to one and all. Human beings cannot but become more respectful and in awe of one another: fellow jivas are the secret to God. Thus bhajan will be the next step in human evolution. Nitai you are right: by Mahaprabhu's will a new era has begun, yes indeed an amazing time to be alive!
Cheers!
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Post by Deva Deva on Jul 11, 2009 21:39:47 GMT -6
I was being honest in that I udnerstood Malati and rejected her proposal: I no longer partake of the belief that bhajan is rare and/or very specific in form. I actually believe that when people like Malati speak of bhajan, they are the ones who cloud up its real meaning. Theirs is a neophyte perception of bhajan. You Nitai perhaps are being diplomatic when you say that she was being generous to us: You know she wasn't. She was speaking down to whomever does not follow the strict format of practices of the tradition she follows, as if that format is the only bhajan there is. I say again that that is a very basic understanding of bhajan. And yet from this primary understanding there was a proposal to discuss ideas put forth by various scholars and saints of different traditions. Such proposal has principally the agenda of remaining snug in one's sense of higherness: The study of others' ideas will never add to the decision this class of devotees have made of remaining formal, fundamental, irreducible. The 'discussion' is to actually break anything that opposes this fundamentalism, so they may continue on down the road on the high horse of abiding. Again, I no longer believe in such ride. I do however, like you, believe that Mahaprabhu's mission is wide and ample in such way that no one tradition can and will afford to be disconnected. Honesty will begin with that.
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Post by Nitaidas on Jul 12, 2009 9:01:52 GMT -6
I was being honest in that I udnerstood Malati and rejected her proposal: I no longer partake of the belief that bhajan is rare and/or very specific in form. I actually believe that when people like Malati speak of bhajan, they are the ones who cloud up its real meaning. Theirs is a neophyte perception of bhajan. You Nitai perhaps are being diplomatic when you say that she was being generous to us: You know she wasn't. She was speaking down to whomever does not follow the strict format of practices of the tradition she follows, as if that format is the only bhajan there is. I say again that that is a very basic understanding of bhajan. And yet from this primary understanding there was a proposal to discuss ideas put forth by various scholars and saints of different traditions. Such proposal has principally the agenda of remaining snug in one's sense of higherness: The study of others' ideas will never add to the decision this class of devotees have made of remaining formal, fundamental, irreducible. The 'discussion' is to actually break anything that opposes this fundamentalism, so they may continue on down the road on the high horse of abiding. Again, I no longer believe in such ride. I do however, like you, believe that Mahaprabhu's mission is wide and ample in such way that no one tradition can and will afford to be disconnected. Honesty will begin with that. My point was, and I thought this was yours too, that bhajan does not have a single meaning, nor should it. When Malati and others who have been initiated into the mainstream tradition use it it often has the more restricted meaning of a set of daily practices. What's wrong with that? Everyone recognizes that it also in some circles means a particular type of song sung with devotion or that it also has a broader meaning that might apply to any reverent regard for a higher power. Why should it have just one meaning and why should one of them be more real than the others? I really don't think Malati intended to put anyone down, but maybe she will speak for herself in this regard. I think she envisions herself as being in the company of others who like herself engage in the daily standard practices of the tradition (regular counted Harinama japa, mantra-smarana, puja, kirtana and possibly but not necessarily lila-smarana). Of course, that is unlikely to be entirely true, but it is partially true. Many who frequent this site do do the standard set of practices that is referred to by the semi-technical term of bhajan and almost everyone who comes here knows what it means. That does not stop the word from meaning other things in other contexts. Speaking of honesty, look around you. How many people do you see with the kind of bhajan that Siddha Baba described (assuming he is correct in his characterization and that we have access to what he really said) in their minds? How can you say it is not rare? Because of Mahaprabhu it may be a lot less rare than it used to be, which is to say unavailable (anarpitacarIm). Now at least it is available and there are some within even a generation of us who have had it. Maybe there are even a few still who have it today, but that does not mean that it is not rare or that it does not require work. Anusilana means also repetition and repetition is the primary force of sadhana. As Sri Rupa points out there are a few lucky souls who have it (bhakti/bhajan) by the grace of Krsna or his bhakta, that is, without sadhana. But most gain it by sadhana, if they gain it. That sadhana is what we call bhajan, the active side of bhakti. Follow whatever practices you find useful in focusing your mind on R and K and call them bhajan if you want. No one denies you that. Or, don't do any practice at all. Maybe you will be one of the lucky, lucky ones (lucky, lucky because even having an opportunity to do sadhana is in the first place lucky) who gets the prize without effort, without sadhana. But don't put down those of us who take as our examples of bhajan, the practices followed by Mahaprabhu and the Gosvamins. Look, I am an atheistic, evolutionary, pro-scientific, anti-religious, humanistic Caitanya Vaisnava and I still do "bhajan" in the way Mahaprabhu did.
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Post by Deva on Jul 12, 2009 9:50:42 GMT -6
Excellent speech. I accept it, but with the following note: Don't forget that Malati dasi is an enthusiastic follower of Advaitadas. And you and I know how fundamentalist Advaitadas can be. There is danger in fundamentalism no matter how precise a fundamentalist's bhajan may appear. This is the particular detail I was addressing. Fundamentalism is the more dangerous in association with powerful premises.
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Post by Nitaidas on Jul 12, 2009 10:53:32 GMT -6
Excellent speech. I accept it, but with the following note: Don't forget that Malati dasi is an enthusiastic follower of Advaitadas. And you and I know how fundamentalist Advaitadas can be. There is danger in fundamentalism no matter how precise a fundamentalist's bhajan may appear. This is the particular detail I was addressing. Fundamentalism is the more dangerous in association with powerful premises. I agree with you there. Fundamentalism is a kind of mental disease. In my experience, it is usually the fundamentalists who are not doing the sadhana properly. Their failure at sadhana has a causal relationship to their fundamentalism. I am not sure how enthusiastic a follower of Advaita Malati is. He has told her not to post on this forum and yet she does. Advaita himself even comes to read it once in a while. And who knows maybe even some of these anonymous posts are his. I think Malati is bright enough to make up her own mind. Anyway, I appreciate the points you have made.
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Post by Sakhicharan Das on Jul 12, 2009 10:59:19 GMT -6
As a bit of a side note:
Another way the term "bhajan" is used around here by some of the babas is like this:
"I only managed der lakh of bhajan today" or "I did tin lakh of bhajan today."
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Post by DD on Jul 12, 2009 12:17:56 GMT -6
Yes I think Malati dasi is going to bring some balance to Advaitadas' tradition. She likes honesty and straightforwardness. There is power in that.
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Post by malati on Jul 12, 2009 16:03:56 GMT -6
Jai Sri Radhe
Thanks Nitaidas for the detailed clarification about the use of the word bhajan and the concepts surrounding the word.
Thanks Sakicharandas for that brief but insightful clarification on the word bhajan.
Thanks DD for your support. Advaitadas gives me advice and I value them and take it in stride but he knows that I diverge a little bit from him in my approach to spiritual life. Still I really appreciate the work he is doing on his blog.
(6 of 6) Last part
Other scholars use what could be called the cumulative argument: they contemplate the comparative plausibility of various arguments and evidences using Adler's favored standard of judgment, the jury's proof "beyond a reasonable doubt." This permits atheists to avoid having to disprove God absolutely, which is as hard to do as prove his existence, and lets theists cite human phenomena that strict empiricism used to rule out. In The Existence of God (Oxford; $37.50), Richard Swinburne of England's Keele University concludes: "The experience of so many men in their moments of religious vision corroborates what nature and history show to be quite likely—that there is a God who made and sustains man and the universe." Basil Mitchell, a philosopher of religion at Oxford, advocates a "many-stranded rope of reason" like that employed by historians or scientists to develop the best explanation of evidence. Among his strands: individuals' experience of a mysterious "other" outside nature, the simple faith of believers and "cosmic awe" in encountering unusually saintly persons.
The procedure is double-edged. Oxford's J.L. Mackie, perhaps the ablest of today's atheistic philosophers, offers nonsupernatural explanations for such evidence, and raises the problem, as old as the Book of Job, of evil. The existence of evil is no "knockdown disproof of an omnipotent and wholly good God," he says, but it does make God , improbable. Plantinga renovates the theist's classic reply to this: the free will argument. Examining whether a semifictional, corrupt Boston mayor would have taken smaller bribes in other "possible worlds," he argues that even an all-powerful God cannot create a world in which mayors can choose to take bribes and that also contains no evil.
In religious circles, natural theology is not in vogue. Not all Roman Catholics can wholeheartedly accept the First Vatican Council's decree that "man can know the one true God and Creator with certainty by the natural light of human reason."
Though few people come to believe through the exercise of reason, cathedrals of thought can provide sanctuary for many when faith falters or is attacked by skeptics. Jude Dougherty, dean of philosophy at the Catholic University of America, also sees value in continuing to labor to reason God out in a day when all sorts of bizarre cults flourish. "If religion is not placed on a rational footing then anything can be considered religion."
Probably the major failing of such enterprise is that the results, however persuasive, tell too little about the nature and will of God. Blaise Pascal, anticipating modern objections to natural theology, believed that one cannot worship a dry concept, only the living God. Though a genius in science and mathematics, Pascal believed that "the heart has its reasons, which reason cannot know." But if in an age of science, faith in God can be more rationally grounded, as a growing number of philosophers now attest, then the reasoning soul who is so inclined can more surely and assuredly feel comfortable in moving beyond reason.
Om Nama Om Bhagavate Vasudevaya
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Post by Nitaidas on Jul 12, 2009 17:11:50 GMT -6
As a bit of a side note: Another way the term "bhajan" is used around here by some of the babas is like this: "I only managed der lakh of bhajan today" or "I did tin lakh of bhajan today." Thanks, Sakhi. This is generally the way I think of bhajan, i.e., Mahamantra japa.
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Post by JD33 on Jul 12, 2009 21:05:41 GMT -6
I think it can be safe to say that Bhajan is accomplished when one is concentrating on the mantra one-pointedly cupled with the idea of doing at least one lakh or 64 malas at one sitting with such concentration.
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Post by malati on Jul 13, 2009 15:58:25 GMT -6
Nitaidas said: I am not sure how enthusiastic a follower of Advaita Malati is. He has told her not to post on this forum and yet she does.
Nitaidasji (or someone can please call Nitaidas' attention to this post. thanks)
Firstly, All the best on your birthday.
About your comment above. I would have passed your comment in silence had Advaitadas not made a big fuss about it. He actually made me angry in the end by pushing the issue. So now I have to make my clarification.
I have no ill feelings toward you NItaidas because our senses are not perfect. Anyone can be mistaken.
I believe I did not make that comment you attributed to me. Firstly,because Advaitadas never said it to me. And secondly and more importantly , because it’s not my practice to “invent” things. I believe the source of your confused recollection is from my post a few months ago when I made a comment on a topic and at the end of my comment I said that Advaitadas would not like me writing this comment or something to that effect. In obvious reference to mine and Advaitadas' different approach to spiritual life. I do read philosophy /religious work from sources outside GV.
Now, I have to sift through my posts to show Advaitadas where that source of your confusion came from. But Advaitadas has to wait and I told him that because I live in the real world—with a job, children , a house to clean, pet to feed, cook….. This is an annoying waste of my time.
Kind regards anyway
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Post by Nitaidas on Jul 13, 2009 23:54:42 GMT -6
Nitaidas said: I am not sure how enthusiastic a follower of Advaita Malati is. He has told her not to post on this forum and yet she does.Nitaidasji (or someone can please call Nitaidas' attention to this post. thanks) Firstly, All the best on your birthday. About your comment above. I would have passed your comment in silence had Advaitadas not made a big fuss about it. He actually made me angry in the end by pushing the issue. So now I have to make my clarification. I have no ill feelings toward you NItaidas because our senses are not perfect. Anyone can be mistaken. I believe I did not make that comment you attributed to me. Firstly,because Advaitadas never said it to me. And secondly and more importantly , because it’s not my practice to “invent” things. I believe the source of your confused recollection is from my post a few months ago when I made a comment on a topic and at the end of my comment I said that Advaitadas would not like me writing this comment or something to that effect. In obvious reference to mine and Advaitadas' different approach to spiritual life. I do read philosophy /religious work from sources outside GV. Now, I have to sift through my posts to show Advaitadas where that source of your confusion came from. But Advaitadas has to wait and I told him that because I live in the real world—with a job, children , a house to clean, pet to feed, cook….. This is an annoying waste of my time. Kind regards anyway Malati, thanks for the birthday wishes. Sorry if I misquoted you. I have also looked back through your posts to find what words you actually used, but I am sure that in one of them I was given the impression that Advaita was not happy with your coming to this forum and participating. Perhaps he did not tell you in so many words not to come here. I believe it was in a post in which you seemed to be saying good-bye to the members of the forum as if you were not going to post any more. Now I don't find it. Anyway, it doesn't really matter what Advaita thinks, or even if he thinks. I am confident that you can think for yourself and that he will not be able to bully you into accepting something you don't agree with or believe.
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