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Post by kirtaniya on Apr 17, 2022 8:22:50 GMT -6
Furthermore,
The krs,कृष् hook brings you to the great idea of @everywhere, on the inhale. And the syllable na brings you such great relief from the hold! When a group of gopis together breathe out this long naaa. <smile of angel>
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Jon
Junior Member
Posts: 51 
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Post by Jon on Apr 26, 2022 1:24:35 GMT -6
As Nitai Mahashay has aptly pointed out, the Mahabharat is not an historical account, and to postulate that Sri Krishna spoke anything at all from those 18 chapters (BG), is patently absurd on a factual basis. I would have to say it does lay out the basic framework of the yoga darshan (one of the 6 philosophical disciplines), however not anything more than what is in the Yoga-sutras of Patanjali. Mina Baba, you are blowing my cover here. These clever bhaktas here (and the peepers who look in but don't join) will figure out that I am trying (like Sridhara Svamin before me) to coax them back from the edge of the precipice of irrationality (and blind, uncritical faith) to a rational form of CV which I previously called Sane Vaisnavism (which does not mean non-ecstatic). In my comments on the Gita I am only following Sri Krishna Prem who says in his introduction to his The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita (p. 10): Though its author is unknown (for we can scarcely adopt the orthodox view, that it was, as we have it, spoken by the historical Krishna on the battlefield of Kuruksetra) ...My only quibble with his statement is the use of the word "historical" here. That implies an historical basis for the Mahabharata and for Sri Krishna. Anyway whoever wrote the Gita and populated it with his own words issuing from the mouth of Sri Krishna was a seer in his own right as Sri Krishna Prem says later (p.11): To anyone who has eyes to see, the Gita is based on direct knowledge of Reality, and of the Path that leads to that Reality, and it is of little moment who wrote it or to what school he was outwardly affiliated.
Just wanted to set the record straight. I am currently interested in reading the commentary of Abhinavagupta on the Gita. I wonder how he draws from its text pearls relevant to his Kashmiri Saivism. Report forth coming!  I am curious, Nitai-ji (and I've no doubt you've probably explained this dozens of times before) about where we draw the line at who is "Krishna". Obviously he did not speak the literal Bhagavat-Gita (which seems to be a permanent 5,000-year sliding scale for the literalists), but there is plenty of evidence a Krishna probably did exist as one of the deified Vrishni Heroes ( Vāsudeva-Krishna). Is he the "historical Krishna", or not? |
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Post by meeno8 on Apr 30, 2022 11:24:15 GMT -6
- When we die, we die, consciousness and all. We return to the root substance of the universe and become parts of other beings.
That strikes me at least as being just an opinion rather than any statement of fact, Nitai Mahashoy.
What is the 'root substance of the universe'? Are you referring to brahman? What is that? Can our human brains with their 'software', the software being the neural connections and electrical impluses that comprise our consciousness within those brains, even fully fathom brahman, even in the face of those various tikas evolving into acintya-bhedha-abedha-vada? The work inconceivable (acintya) is right there in the name of that school of Vedanta.
As mystics in the CV tradition, I think we need to view one aspect of it as an exploration into the depths of consciousness, many worlds theory aside. Is the consciousness 'raised' on experiencing the krishna-prem that can come from merely chanting the mahamantra, or is the culmination of that effort plumbing the depths of consciousness lying under the surface like a SCUBA diver experiences the underwater wonders of a coral reef? If you have been diving and/or snorkeling and had that experience, which is quite intoxicating (we did it snorkeling in Mexico a few times), then you can appreciate the metaphor.
'Backing up' statements with textual references is just one of several types of evidences (pramana). For example, if an author (i.e. the recognized authority in a field of non-fiction) publishes in a journal that is peer reviewed, then that provides a basis for recognition of that person. Given the nature of our consciousness, and new discoveries are being made objectively with each successive decade in studying meditators in trances demonstrate the fluidity of that ongoing research. Separating non-fiction from fiction in the corpus of Sanskrit literature should not be all that difficult in the final analysis, as long as one applies critical thinking.
But I digress...
Mysticism trumps religiosity and all the excess baggage that comes with the latter. If one decides to adhere to the opposite view, well... I think that speaks for itself.
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Post by Nitaidas on May 2, 2022 16:26:57 GMT -6
- When we die, we die, consciousness and all. We return to the root substance of the universe and become parts of other beings. That strikes me at least as being just an opinion rather than any statement of fact, Nitai Mahashoy. What is the 'root substance of the universe'? Are you referring to brahman? What is that? Can our human brains with their 'software', the software being the neural connections and electrical impluses that comprise our consciousness within those brains, even fully fathom brahman, even in the face of those various tikas evolving into acintya-bhedha-abedha-vada? The work inconceivable (acintya) is right there in the name of that school of Vedanta. As mystics in the CV tradition, I think we need to view one aspect of it as an exploration into the depths of consciousness, many worlds theory aside. Is the consciousness 'raised' on experiencing the krishna-prem that can come from merely chanting the mahamantra, or is the culmination of that effort plumbing the depths of consciousness lying under the surface like a SCUBA diver experiences the underwater wonders of a coral reef? If you have been diving and/or snorkeling and had that experience, which is quite intoxicating (we did it snorkeling in Mexico a few times), then you can appreciate the metaphor. 'Backing up' statements with textual references is just one of several types of evidences (pramana). For example, if an author (i.e. the recognized authority in a field of non-fiction) publishes in a journal that is peer reviewed, then that provides a basis for recognition of that person. Given the nature of our consciousness, and new discoveries are being made objectively with each successive decade in studying meditators in trances demonstrate the fluidity of that ongoing research. Separating non-fiction from fiction in the corpus of Sanskrit literature should not be all that difficult in the final analysis, as long as one applies critical thinking. But I digress... Mysticism trumps religiosity and all the excess baggage that comes with the latter. If one decides to adhere to the opposite view, well... I think that speaks for itself. Minaketan Ramdasji Maharaj, thanks for chiming in here. You think my projected future existence as a few molecules in a vast ocean of permutating molecules joining and separating into smaller, more complex systems is just an opinion and not a fact? Perhaps. It is a projection based solely on sense perception and inference, and to some degree the verbal testimony of trusted authorities (scientists). Using those sources of valid knowledge (and ignoring the prohibition imposed on the use of pratyaksa and anumana imposed on us by our acaryas) one can come to no other conclusion. We see people die. We see them be buried or burned. We never see them again. We can see their ashes or decomposing bodies if we wish to dig them up merging with the world. There is no scientific evidence for the independent existence of consciousness. I am not sure what you mean by "new discoveries" in the field of consciousness studies. I doubt that any of them are the least bit credible. There are plenty of quacks who strive to make a buck by misleading people into believing that they have "evidence" of the existence of consciousness, but all we have substantially is plenty of direct experience of its end, its disappearance. I watched my mother die, holding her hand as she did it. She was there and then not. To believe that she still exists as a consciousness somewhere is for me absurd. There is no evidence for that and as such it cannot be a fact. Hucksters can always say that I was not equipped to see her depart her body. "Come let's have a seance and we will help you speak with her again." I say, no thanks. This is just a fantasy devised to extract wealth and wisdom from the people in emotionally fragile conditions. Brahman is a fact, but in an unedifying one. Brahman, from the root bRh, means the greatest, the most expansive conception of reality possible. But when you say brahman is the all, what are you actually saying? There must be something that corresponds to everything existing taken as a whole, but nothing can be said about what that whole might be. It is all speculation and imagination and nothing really factual. The greatest could refer to Mohamed Ali, or to some dimly grasped effort to imagine everything that exists as one entity. Brahman really means nothing and can't be characterized in any way. No one can know it. So how can anyone say that it is consciousness? That is just wishful thinking. A day dream. So what I am saying is that since there is no real evidence to the contrary, we have these lives to live and cannot expect anything more beyond that. We may as well live those lives as pleasantly as possible. The Krsna fantasy is about as good and pleasant a fantasy as one can find. Additionally, one can derive real pleasant experiences from that fantasy in the form of bhakti-rasa. We've known many who have experienced that during their lives, right bro? Tinkori Baba, Krsnacarana Das Babaji, and many others indirectly. How have they done it? By chanting the Mahamantra and hearing the stories imagined up by great poets like Jayadeva, Sri Rupa Gosvamin, Sri Kavi Karnapura, Sri Sanatana, Sri Jiva, Visvanatha Cakravartin, and others. Is it necessary that those poetic accounts be true? Not at all. Let the poetry touch our hearts and carry us away as it did for Mahaprabhu. With luck we will shed tears, horripilate, laugh, dance, speak gibberish, fall down in faints, and otherwise have a thoroughly rocking good time. Then we will die, merge back into matter, and that will be our last hurrah. What is wrong with that? What a way to live and what a way to go! If you want more than that you are a selfish,egotistical prick (or thingy) and will not go gently into that good night. Instead you will rage, rage against the dying of the light and die anyway, a disgruntled participant in an all-to-brief moment of delight in the sun. |
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Post by Nitaidas on May 2, 2022 22:14:34 GMT -6
There is an interesting article in the NYT today that makes a point similar to the one I make in my last posting only from a Jewish perspective. It is called "How to Pray to a God you don't believe in." You can read it here. I discovered it after I posted the previous post. |
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jiva
Full Member
Posts: 142
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Post by jiva on May 2, 2022 23:16:38 GMT -6
Minaketan Ramdasji Maharaj, thanks for chiming in here. You think my projected future existence as a few molecules in a vast ocean of permutating molecules joining and separating into smaller, more complex systems is just an opinion and not a fact? Perhaps. It is a projection based solely on sense perception and inference, and to some degree the verbal testimony of trusted authorities (scientists). "Let scientists fight out the truth of a scientific hypothesis, let's enjoy the bliss of the world of RadhaKrishna." - Nitaidas  |
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Post by avadhutadas on May 3, 2022 5:32:38 GMT -6
Radhe Radhe
“ If you want more than that you are a selfish,egotistical prick (or thingy) and will not go gently into that good night. Instead you will rage, rage against the dying of the light and die anyway, a disgruntled participant in an all-to-brief moment of delight in the sun.”
This reads like a projection 🤣
Consciousness has nothing to do with your moms body or personality. That’s all material stuff. Does science have the ability to understand something that is not material? I doubt it. I’m not opposed to science but it’s a bit narrow minded in certain aspects. It’s too bad your Gurudev isn’t around to talk about these things with. I wonder what he would say? I can conclude from your statements that you don’t believe he reached Brahman realization or anything of the sort.
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Post by Nitaidas on May 3, 2022 12:48:32 GMT -6
Radhe Radhe “ If you want more than that you are a selfish,egotistical prick (or thingy) and will not go gently into that good night. Instead you will rage, rage against the dying of the light and die anyway, a disgruntled participant in an all-to-brief moment of delight in the sun.” This reads like a projection 🤣 Consciousness has nothing to do with your moms body or personality. That’s all material stuff. Does science have the ability to understand something that is not material? I doubt it. I’m not opposed to science but it’s a bit narrow minded in certain aspects. It’s too bad your Gurudev isn’t around to talk about these things with. I wonder what he would say? I can conclude from your statements that you don’t believe he reached Brahman realization or anything of the sort. The unwarranted projection is imposing spirit on matter. There is no such thing as spirit. It's an illusion like a mirage. My gurudev was a wonderful man. He no doubt experienced bhakti rasa. There is no Brahman for him to have reached. Brahman in another empty projection. Why do people buy into such ideas without any good evidence? It's just wish fulfillment. Because some text written a thousand years ago said it, does not make it true. The Vedas are just poetry, some of it good poetry, but not revelations of any higher truth. Those who claim so have never even read them. You should see what ridiculous ideas are projected on to the Vedas. Science is the only real way of knowing and it is self-correcting. One can't say that about so-called Vedic knowledge. Maybe one could say it is self- deluding. It first deludes us into believing there is a self and then into believing it is immortal. You may embrace such fantasies, but I don't. I need evidence. The scriptures don't provide it. They just browbeat one into believing the most absurd things and threaten one with hell if one doesn't. Nevertheless, I will continue to do my japas and try to understand and to speak the truth. I am in a unique position to be able to read the texts and see them for what they really are. |
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Post by avadhutadas on May 3, 2022 14:36:25 GMT -6
Very interesting Nitaidasji. It sounds like you are gravitating fully towards being a materialist. How do you feel about scientists admitting that they cannot account for 96% of the universe. Are you familiar with this? Scientists have added up everything they know and have determined that it equals 4% of everything that is. That’s a lot of missing information no?
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Post by kirtaniya on May 3, 2022 14:55:45 GMT -6
Arrogant and preachy.
Why not a scientist? Mahaprabhu is not just a somnambulist. Get to know him like a scientist. You conduct an experiment, you get a perfect scientific. Otherwise you remain with an opinion. You like opinions, and this is not scientific, this is a dull cult of science.
Until you know the ultimate truth, you are either an eternalist-substantialist or a negativist-agnostic. Clinging to these two extremes, replacing each other. Look, with absence of such clinging - there is no outer time over birth and death. But there is a law of interdependence of born phenomena.
Left a vain hope for the imperceptible. Fine. So, the primary is the same delusion. You don't need the imaginary soul, but you need the imaginary primary? Why? Because this movement of something through time and space to the end is a habitual illusion. What moves and what ends? Wave, particle, string are primitives to which we reduce the perceived. Considering oneself getting older is just a habit of thinking about oneself. You don't know this self.
Find that inconceivable longing of the mind for the certain, the stable, the secure, the comprehensible. Find the opposite of this craving - the unborn. You have to rethink a lot about what it means to be something that exists. And to find it does not mean to hold some opinion. Then you will appreciate divine madness not as a lesser evil or some kind of ice cream with sand of regret.
See the habitual inclinations. You gotta be ready to check all of them. They are what karma is. Karma - simply - habitual actions, actions due to established ideas about values and significance.
Meanings and significance determine the flow of aspirations. The sum of this flow is the essence and a being that limits the ability to act. A being is born out of karma, and with the exhaustion of karma it ceases activity.
The mystical mind sees this as mystical. The rational mind sees this rationally. These are also meanings and significance, clinging to them and being motivated by them. The seeds of impulses are generally called karma. Watch out how karma shapes a stream which is in hanker to preserve itself. Watch out how this stream is arbitrarily allocated. The king of the mind is just like an imaginary deity of water or of a tree.
You can label the pursuit for happiness as a spirit. Or you can not to label it. When you see it directly you lose the interest for futile talks about labels, designations. Why not we argue about taste of an apple? But if you like it, find those who think otherwise and argue with them. As you wish.
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Post by avadhutadas on May 5, 2022 5:52:09 GMT -6
Nitaidasji, I was thinking about your ideas some more and I don’t think you can have them without committing at least guru ninda and thinking the glories of the Holy name to be an exaggeration. I’m under no illusion that you care about such things but I figured I’d mention it for anyone else who is reading. If there is no god as you say then Gurudev is nothing special and the holy name is just a way to get some material enjoyment or something. Obviously your ideas are unique to you and have no relation to CV at this point. Every Acarya and Goswami has taught about the offenses to the holy name. It’s a core tenant of CV and other Vaisnava sects. You are free to pick and choose what you think Mahaprabhu actually taught or believed of course.
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Post by kirtaniya on May 5, 2022 12:22:46 GMT -6
If anyone is interested, please share.
What is a god? Could you tell me what is it?
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Post by meeno8 on May 5, 2022 15:48:58 GMT -6
The discoveries I was referring to are specifically fMRI scans of people's brains, and that is in the field of neurology, an actual science. Not exactly the domain of 'hucksters'. I love the reference to the Dylan Thomas poem by the way. We were given that to read English class in high school. I am sure you recall those brass rubbings my parents had hanging in the living room when you lived at our house back in the day. That English teacher went over to Europe and made those on the graves of knights.
God is a Judeo-Christian concept, and has nothing to do with ista-devata. Something gets lost in translation when people refer to Krishna as that blue god, or Shiva as that dancing god.
With respect to consciousness, its existence in this life is undeniable, its continuation beyond death aside. I am sure you remember my niece Angela, Nitai Mahashay. She did her doctoral dissertation on neuro-transmitters. She just put up a couple white papers by 2 of her students (she does research with prairie voles rather than white mice or rats). The gist of those was when elderly voles were studied in their bonded male/female pairs, they ventured out into open spaces, whereas those that had lost a mate would not. You can boil down the bliss of prema from bhajan to oxytocin and serotonin in the brain, if you want to take your reasoning one step further. This evokes the memory of the line delivered by Al Pacino in that film Devil's Adocate where he plays Lucifer, and he says to the character played by Keanu Reeves: "Love: Nothing more than the pleasure one derives from eating a large amount of chocolate." Interestingly, one of the compounds in chocolate is called theobromin (and we know what theo is).
But I digress:
I present what the yoga darshan has to offer (that mystical school, that CV sweeps under the proverbial rug). I was hired by the owner of a local yoga studio to teach a workshop on mantra meditation. She told me that I was a true yogi, because she had only been trained as a yoga instructor, and her ladies came for classes mainly to get a good morning workout. And what yoga studio teaches the mudras in addition to the asanas? They go hand in hand, and you cannot be a yogi with one and not the other. Yes some of the yoga schools in the west do teach the mudras, but I suspect they are few and far between. If we accept the presupposition that there is samsara, and that the end goal of yoga practice is to achieve mukti and then get out of that endless cycle, then that is the essence of that darshana (which is one of the 6th along with vedanta). A very mystical approach, if you will, and not tied up with any religious dogma. But some may argue that it does profess dogma in the event that presupposition is disregarded.
Yes, in that consciousness in the brain is only temporary, then it is non-existent in the grand scheme of themes. Illusory, but everything in the universe is also ephemeral, although matter cannot be created or destroyed, only converted back and forth between energy. E=MC2 (Energy = Mass times the constant, the speed of light, squared). Are we energy or are we matter? Without energy we would be just a lump of matter, yet we have that huge number of cells that make up our bodies, and they have their own independent consciousness, albeit ephemeral, and they die off before we eventually do. And is brahman energy? If so, what sort of energy?
Anyways... good stuff.
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Post by avadhutadas on May 6, 2022 5:56:56 GMT -6
If anyone is interested, please share. What is a god? Could you tell me what is it? God is the logic of the atheist and the faith of the devotee. The discipline of the teacher and the dance of the gopi. The stillness of death and the movement of wind. God is the source of the beginning and what comes after the end. God is the aggression of the fighter and the sweetness of the lover. The strictness of a father and the tenderness of a mother. Some find it strange and some find it odd, But there is one place where even god isn’t god. In this mystical land that is not bound by time or space, A smile brighter than the moon alights upon his face. It’s only when he forgets that he’s the source of all, Then his sweetness arises and his flute makes the call. The gopis come running, their dresses and ornaments in disarray, It’s in this land where god is no longer god that the devotees laugh and play. |
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Post by Nitaidas on May 6, 2022 11:27:18 GMT -6
Very interesting Nitaidasji. It sounds like you are gravitating fully towards being a materialist. How do you feel about scientists admitting that they cannot account for 96% of the universe. Are you familiar with this? Scientists have added up everything they know and have determined that it equals 4% of everything that is. That’s a lot of missing information no? It looks like I have stirred up the nest here. I am glad. We have to be shaken out of our dogmatic slumbers every now and again. I am convinced that the duality matter-spirit is a false distinction. In the West that distinction was invented by Roger Bacon and is in my view a false distinction. Matter and spirit are not distinct. There is simply matter which has qualities that give the impression of something different. Consciousness is one of those qualities and it arises only in some circumstances through the interactions of various forms of matter with each other. Is a case of blind men touching different parts of an elephant and proposing different traits to the same creature. As a result consciousness is not immortal, but temporary and changeable. That said I think we can all agree that Krsna is a being made of consciousness, communicated from one consciousness to another and occupying no world outside of consciousness. Whatever presence he has outside of consciousness is based in consciousness and creates more instances of him in consciousness (through pictures, idols, vocal expressions, etc). He is an idea or a nexus of ideas that lives in consciousness, is communicated from one consciousness to another and when consciousness vanishes on death or some such tragic event, he vanishes too. I find that attitude of scientists extremely refreshing. It is called honesty and humility. If one wants dishonesty and arrogance one can turn to theologians or faithists who believe they know everything or at least have a source at hand for knowing everything. On the other hand what scientists know about the universe is real and true. That we have plenty of experience of (as we communicate through electrons from great distances). In that remaining 96% of the universe that is very little chance of the discovery of spirit, because it simply doses not exist separately from matter. We may come to understand how matter configures consciousness and how consciousness arises from matter, but not more than that. Matter itself is a poor name for the substance of the world since it continues to imply spirit. How about spatter or smatter, or matrit or something much more clever? |
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