LoveroftheBhagavata

Well, I now disown this thread, as it is clear to anyone who applies some critical thinking that the Siva-Gita is a fatuous interpolation that certainly can not weave into the main body of the text of the Padma Purana in a seamless, logical, consistent manner. All glories to Mahadeva Shiva but it is Lord Hari, and ONLY LORD HARI, who is God. This is the sum and substance of Vedic philosophy, and those who see anything else in the Vedas are only deluding themselves, and that too most comically. In short, Vaishnava Vedanta is the cream of religious systems, and I know that instinctively as well as intuitively. I chose to turn away from it due to my own bad karma not that long ago, but as much as I wished to shun the conception of a personal deity, I found the irresistible charm of Sri Sri Radha-Govinda inexorably pulling me back to Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Hence, others may want to consider the nonsense with which I started this thread as something worthy of being commented upon, but for my part I distance myself from it, definitively.

That's pretty rich indeed, coming from a self-appointed Vaishnava apologist! You're one to talk, having quite adequately provided everyone with a glimpse of how rational, thoughtful and discerning you yourself were on the "Arranged Marriage" thread, with that outrageous display of backward, reactionary, apologetic pietism in which you indulged. Vaishnavism is no different from any of the paths the gratuitous decrying of which you seem to revel in, demanding as it does, almost unquestioning faith in a whole range of notions that do nothing except violate common sense and reason. I generally speak from a basically Advaitin viewpoint on these forums, but to be completely upfront, I am more of an agnostic than anything else, and in fact I relentlessly strive to make rationality prevail over doctrinal belief, whenever I happen to contemplate on the kind of theme being discussed on these spaces or any other topic for that matter. I personally have no opinion, whether positive or negative, on Christ, since he holds no specific interest for me, but for a geezer like yourself to accuse others of not thinking critically is the height of grotesquerie truly, as you have more than abundantly demonstrated the negligible role that rational thinking plays in your own particular instance. And yes, I'm ready to bet that if you do respond to this post, you'll in effect be bringing grist for my mill, and furnish even further evidence in attestation of the narrowness and worthlessness of your cult.

Going by the above, it is crystal clear that Vaishnavism fits the definition like a glove, and vice versa. CONCLUSION: Vaishnavism is as sectarian as one can get. End of discussion!

LOL

Extremely apposite, Kulapavanaji. It is to be hoped that Svarupa is in possession of sufficient grey matter to understand and appreciate what you just wrote. I don't think we ought to bank on it, though. Namaskar

Even though the definition to which you seem to is by far the most popular one today, Shvu is essentially correct in ascribing the phrase to nineteenth-century Indian nationalists. Once again, as in most issues surrounding Hinduism and the broad array of religious avenues that it houses (e.g. the dating of the scriptures, Puranic cosmology and mythology, extraneous influences on Vedic texts and so on - the list is almost endless), it basically boils down to a matter of defendable scholarship versus pietistic acceptance. You can thus freely take your pick. The more rational-minded among us will find the former preferable to the latter. This is indeed my personal stance. You have the total liberty to choose what suits your purposes better.

Je suis absolument d'accord avec toi Shvu, sur ce point-ci du moins, mais le reste d'entre eux n'ont vraiment aucune idee de ce que tu as ecris sur ce theme precis. Et connaissant leur position tellement rigide sur cette chose floue qu'ils appellent (naivement dirais-je) Sanatana Dharma, il est peu probable que tu ais une chance, aussi minime soit-elle, de les convaincre. Cela n'en vaut pas la peine franchement.

I honestly don't see how a credible case can be built in support of this idea. The fact is that the Gita is far more akin to the Upanishads in spirit, essence and structure; for this obvious reason, it is often called the Gitopanishad. Typically, the gist of most/all Upanishads revolves around questions put by a party to a sage or more knowledgeable personage and develops through the responses formulated thereof, and in this shares the same fundament with the Gita. The four Vedas, on the other hand, concern themselves with hymns that are meant to be chanted during fire sacrifices to the personified forces of nature, later deified as Indra, Varuna and Rudra (who may or may not be the Shiva that we know today) and equally bear references to accounts that may be partly historical in origin (examples of such are the Battle of Ten Kings, the protracted wars of attrition between the so-called Aryans and Dasas/Dasyus etc). Of course, I am diametrically at odds with the mainstream Indologists on this score, being a committed opponent of the AIT/AMT/acculturation model or any of the variations of the largely outmoded racial theories on the genesis of Indian civilisation. The point remains, however, and it is one which the naive believers of the popular or should I say populist Puranic version of events cannot escape, that the very verses of the Vedas vehemently contradict the pious notion that they are "apaurusheya" as claimed by a sizeable chunk from within the tradition. Instead of Vedic dharma being an age-old God-given essence, the internal textual evidence would indicate that Indian spirituality in all of its phenomenal contemporary diversity, is a product of complex historical processes. Thus, in the Vedas, we have mundane military skirmishes, priests appealing to the natural forces for a number of different purposes and a host of other elements, but strangely, never God Himself, whether in a personal or impersonal capacity, being directly revealed to earthly humans, or even delivering spiritual information to them, in contrast with the Koran, for instance, where we have a divine envoy personally instructing Hazrat Mohammed on divinity. Many people, and Vaishnavas specifically, do not seem to be able to resist the temptation to artificially syncretise the widely diverging, from a geographical, philosophical and historiographical perspective, various divisions of Sanskrit scriptures. What defendable scholarly research and opinions would demonstrate, however, is that such approaches are more works of fiction than anything else and tend to have a far greater insubstantial basis in reality than their exponents would have the rest of the world believe. Having said this, Amlesh, I appreciate the mood in which and humility with which your posts are written and I shall terminate on this note: may the self-appointed Vaishnava apologists on this forum learn from you an ounce of spiritual qualities as rudimentary as tolerance, compassion and generosity of spirit. Then again, I'm not holding my breath on that.

Indeed, and this resurgence of Hindu nationalistic sentiments occurred at the height of the Raj. For this reason, I quit utilising the term Sanatana Dharma long back. I prefer to simply describe what I construe as authentic religious principles as "dharma", which at least finds explicit presence in the Sanskrit writings. Of course, like Theist and cbrahma, I also acknowledge the positive value of systems other than Veda-based ones, even though I myself find Advaita and Buddhism to be more universalistic in outlook, and at the same time more rationalistic and logically sound in theoretical framework as well as application, than cults revolving around personal deities, with all of the unavoidable cultural associations. Hence, I would laud the attempts of those who recognise the indubitable validity (from a historical perspective) of the Semitic faiths as opposed to the India-only imbecilic arguments of others. In the end, I can only sign off from this thread with the following quote of Albert Einstein's, which is particularly pertinent to the theme under discussion here: "ALL RELIGIONS, ARTS, AND SCIENCES AR BRANCHES OF THE SAME TREE."

Well, I happen to find Leo's paintings including this one particularly inspiring. Don't ask me why because I haven't got the time to write a lengthy essay on this. Your avatar on the other hand is one of those comic characters that my 4-year-old finds especially fascinating. Wonder if you like cartoons as well. I do and have no qualms about confessing to that.

In fact, I would concur with you on this one. The struggle of a sadhana-siddha is in many respects more admirable, inspiring and emulatable than an already-perfect-guru come down from the spiritual world to herd a group of disciples back to the fair land. This insistence on one's preceptor being a nitya-siddha in certain Gaudiya quarters is irrational, to say the least.

I clearly recall having read him say that he was a physician of spotless character in his previous life, and that this detail was known on the basis of the Bhrigu-samhita. The descent from Goloka yarn was in fact spun by his disciples, probably when he was still physically present and disproportionately embellished and mythologised after his disappearance.

I dunno about shastric evidence, but black holes exist for sure. Read up John Wheeler on the matter.

Having myself undergone a marked change in spirit since my abnegation of Bengali Vaishnavism, I shall applaud the sensible stance of Theist and cbrahma in having the insight and generosity to see good and genuine spirituality in traditions other than the one that most people happen to follow here. I'm not going to dignify the anti-party in this instance with a comment on their views. However, one of the immense benefits that impersonalism has afforded me is the ability to develop appreciation for a whole multitude of superficially divergent, conflicting philosophies, including a renewed realisation of the value of modern critical scholarship and science. So I can only conclude with this: "Way to go, buddies!" and in addition feel really remorseful of the past opprobrium heaped upon Christ on these forums by myself.

Yes Theist, the contents of this are but a summary of the basics around the different forms of meat-driven pollution that I had in mind. Good stuff indeed. Let us only hope that the PETA activists do manage to convert some additional folks to the cause.

Indeed, the meat industry is one of the biggest culprits in this story. Aside from the well-documented monstrous amounts of pollution that it causes on a whole range of levels, land that would otherwise be put to efficient and proper use in the production of grains and vegetables for human consumption gets diverted to a lesser purpose in the cultivation of soya beans, a major item of cattle fodder in many countries. The most pitiable thing is, the inherent futility of this practice in terms of the enormous wastage of resources that it automatically entails is well-known, and there is a crisp, eruditely-thought-out as well as voluminous literature on the theme. When weighted in the balance against the billions that are at stake, in the modern playground of international capitalism, the future of the planet and of humanity at large invariably gets relegated to the back seat, unluckily.

I shall try to investigate the issue when I have a bit more time on my hands, Aditya. Please bear with me. Namaskar

Thanks a lot for your kind words, Aditya. I shall trawl for material that contains some specific teachings of Sant Kabir and post the stuff here. Namaste

I guess you must be referring to DW. He seems to be a mentally unsound fellow, with pretty bizarre behavioural tendencies. His characteristically puerile, nescient, vituperative cant would suffice to engender ill-health in any normal person. For your own sake, my friend, try to emulate my actions in that respect and promptly proceed to place that buffoon on your ignore list. Cheers

If you had properly grasped the meaning of my post, you would've deduced that this is precisely my point. Regrettably, you don't seem to have - ask Theist if you want. From his response, it is crystal clear that he knew what I was talking about.

I know what you mean. The same hopelessly depressing trend has in fact gripped the Mauritian local market. The majority of people seem to be in utter despair about it all. I keep wracking my brains over the issue, but to no avail - no lasting, sustainable way out looks set to emerge from any corner.

Should things keep deteriorating so intently and rapidly, I could start thinking that maybe, just maybe, there is perhaps a modicum of truth to the reptilian Prison Warden crackpot theories of David Icke.

The problem as I see it is spawned in no small measure by the steep curve along which the economies of China and India, amongst others, have been growing for a while. From their traditional statuses as natural exporters of wheat, rice and other basic foodstuffs, these nations, home to nearly half of the global population, have switched to having to import in order to fulfil their massive and exponentially increasing domestic demand levels. This has generated a tremendous turbulence on the world market, with many ripple effects that are yet to manifest, either fully or partially. Hence, we find ourselves in a dire crisis with regards to food supplies, and one that is being felt rather acutely on a worldwide scale. Of course, the severe droughts and other recurring climatic catastrophes that nations such as Australia and others have been through of late have no doubt exacerbated the already parlous state of affairs, and to a significant extent contributed in further miring the world in the quagmire we find ourselves in. And also, the situation is certainly not aided in any way by the budding love affair with biofuels that we get wind of daily on our TV screens and in the papers. Hence, it is really a combination of factors that has led the planet to where it is presently. Surely, little cause for celebration and rejoicing can be drawn from such a bleak picture.

Yes, I do respect and appreciate Sadaputa's efforts. If you think about it, it is quite clear that his work does lean towards a variant of the kind of harmonisation that I mentioned above.

In frankness, I am at a loss to explain the rationale behind this eternal Vaishnava fixation with trying to prove modern science wrong. It is a lost cause - face it! Religion exists because spirituality is an organic component of the human essence, and the multiplicity of paths that grace the current earthly mystical scene have very specific roles to fulfil. Scientific paradigms, on the other hand, are rested on foundational premises that derive from totally different epistemic bases, and for the most part, it is nothing short of ludicrous to attempt comparisons between the two. Religious methodologies are mainly concerned with the indefinable questions of existence, and more often than not, relate to an individual's inner experiences and evolutions, which are intrinsically subjective, and not amenable to objective empirical experimentation. For science and technology, it is the reverse that prevails, implicitly. I do not hold that the professional practitioners in the numerous scientific fields are infallible, having said this. However, science remains by and large THE most reliable and tested means of accumulating knowledge about the phenomenal world in which we all dwell. And only someone in complete denial of this plain, stark truth would argue against the unquestionable usefulness and unimpeachable validity of the scientific method. In conclusion, a much more intellectually reputable position of harmonising, as far as possible, science and religion, could be envisaged. Certain constituent characteristics and parts of the two entities are, admittedly, irreconcilable. My own proposal, in these instances, would be to consign such portions to well-defined but essentially relativistic silos, and I also imagine that some honesty in acknowledging the fact that no full nor even satisfactory solution is feasible in that regard, would be most reasonable, as well as welcome. This is predicated on the fundamental assumption that Existence (with a capital E, and in its potentially widest definition) is not something that either science or religion can claim to be capable of completely reducing to a set of formulae or mantras.