kaisersose

But how does this matter? You agree that the individual has stepped out of the Sampradaya. Then how much does a threat which is based on a Sampradaya specific translation matter to the individual? Because I am sure you are aware that the Ishvasya verse is interpreted in completely different ways by different people. Cheers

Let us see if I got this right. You do not have a problem with gay marriage (makes sense, as you are mature enough to understand that you should not be poking your nose into other people's lives), but you have a problem with Hridayananda blessing a gay couple? I fail to see the logic. Cheers

The word kafir is from Islam & has its roots in intolerance. Obviously, there is no equivalent for this word in any branch of Hinduism that I know. As for the Original Post of Hindus "appealing" to Muslims - what can I say? After being wimps for 1000 years, I guess it has become second nature. Cheers

On the first day, man created God. - Anonymous As far as I can tell from studying the scriptures, all you do in heaven is pretty much just sit around all day and praise the Lord. I don’t know about you, but I think that after the first, oh, I don’t know, 50,000,000 years of that I’d start to get a little bored. - Rick Reynolds We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes. - Gene Roddenberry I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence. - Doug McLeod I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. - Susan B. Anthony The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. - Richard Dawkins Blind faith is an ironic gift to return to the Creator of human intelligence. - Anonymous What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof. - Christopher Hitchens It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the Bible. - George W. Foote I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it. - Mark Twain

I asked, And the response (as expected) is I said And it appears nothing has changed since the last time. Not a single line has been read on Advaita and with not a shred of evidence to support their allegations, these wannabe Mayavada defeaters continue their tirade hoping no one will see through the charade. Case closed? Somehow I doubt it. Cheers

The two do not align, of course. Do not waste time trying to reconcile the two. You can think what you like. You have the freedom to do that. It does not mean everything you like and everything you think is necessarily based in fact. There are countless people doing that right now. They ignore reality and lose themselves in a fantasy world which only contains what they like. Cheers

My apologies for crashing the Mayavada bashing party. But sadly this post makes you the pig and not the advaitins. The simple reason is Advaita does not equate a with b and c, as you have incorrectly assumed it does. If you disagree (that you are the pig), then please furnish some evidence that advaita equates everything with everything else. I wil immediately take back my statement. But I recall, you had attempted a similar campaign before on this forum and like all other bashers here, vanished when asked for evidence. But who knows? Maybe you have learnt a thing or two since then and I am perfectly fine with giving you the benefit of doubt. And just out of curiosity, have you taken your extraordinarily high level of clarity on Mayavada to the Advaita forum ever? You know, to expose their pigheadedness, as you put it. Or are you too chicken, just like your distingushed Hare Krishna colleague and peer, Ranjeet? Cheers

Whatever you said may be, it is certainly not evolution. There is plenty of material on evolution easily available. Please take some time and read it before you will speak on the topic. I assume you are not going to learn evolution from religious sources. Cheers

Well said with It impolite to assume that I don't know my own faith.. Some people here think they know Chrsitianity and Advaita better than followers of those traditions. Arrogance is what I call it. Their barking on this forum is worth nothing. Cheers

Incorrect. Vyasa did not "put the Vedas in writing". He just reorganized a single Veda into multiple Vedas. The Samhitas were not written down and remained oral until at least 1000 AD. Cheers

No one is ruffled. Just making it clear that there is no evidence for such a connection. Cheers

Interesting. I was not aware of the cowherd Krishna reference in the Mbh. My previous post is not fully correct, then. The MBh is believed to have been edited upto 7th century AD or maybe even later. But that does not mean the cowherd reference is bogus. Other texts like Harivamsha and VP are dated primarily based on writing style plus other data like mentioning the Gupta kings, etc. This is valid, if these exists a text which was completed before Raghu the village boy moved on. How many texts do we know which satisfy this condition? We can use this logic, to argue that the references to Radha in the Brahma Vaivarta is proof of her existence even though she is absent in other texts. Or for the avatarhood of Chaitanya and even Bhakti Vinoda's dreams where Madhva cried. We would be inclined to lean towards the more "feasible" option. This can raise a whole other discussion that is not relevant to this thread. One example is the ancestor worship found in some Vedas vs. the reincarnation concept. To me the two are contradictory and were developed by different people during different times. But some others may try to reconcile the two with the intention of proving consistency. Cheers

There is a remote possibility of that - or a more higher probability of both stories ripped off from an even earlier source. Krishna has several aspects to him. The Mahabharata Krishna (the king) who can reliably be placed before Christ is not a cowherd. Krishna the cowboy is to be found in other works which are all dated after Christ - not because of the alleged shepherd-cowboy link, but for various other factors. Similarly, there are reasons to suspect the fabrication of the Jesus story from earlier existing stories. However, no evidence for any of these is conclusive. So anything goes. Cheers

It is the other way around. If someone is claiming a christian hand, they should be able to back it up with evidence. 1) Madhva never said anywhere that part of his doctrine was inspired by Christian Sources. 2) There is no part of his doctrine where he just makes some bald claims and says this is outside the realm of the Trayi. He has quoted a Brahma Tarka which is not available and never appears to have been available outside the tradition, but his chief tenets are not critically dependant on the authenticity of this missing text. 3) His biography does not say anything about Christian influences. Conclusion: There is no evidence for the connection. Did he know Christians? Maybe. Did he know their doctrine? Maybe. Was he influenced by them? Maybe. But there is no evidence for that and when such links are proposed, it should be made clear that it is all speculation. Cheers

Breaking it down, 1) I believe that there is no God 2) I'm beyond atheism. 3) Atheism is not believing in God (1) & (2) contradict (3). Cheers

My post is for fun too, but is true nonetheless. Proving the non-existence of something is impossible because it is not possible to prove a negative. But as a theist, you are stating a positive. Your fun rewrite should be "You cannot prove there is an elephant in your trunk". But then, if you cannot prove a positive claim, such as the existence of an elephant, then your claim is invalidated. It is the same as stating "2 + 2 = 5, but I will not prove it...I just know it". That can only be acceptable for someone who dropped out of school during 3rd grade. ? Consider a rewrite of your rewrite. The current version is logically untenable. Btw, the original post by the atheist is flawed too. Cheers

They did not recommend sutras, you are right. But did Mahaprabhu explicitly say that Karma has a beginning? Or does the Bhagavatam? Since Baladeva comes in the line of your Acharyas, his words ought to have some value, if not very much. Do you just dismiss him away or do you attempt to reconcile his commentary on the Sutras with the rest of your beliefs? Or do you think that is not necessary? Also, in a line of Gurus, if 2 Gurus have said 2 different things, which Guru do you pick and why? Cheers

Hear, Hear! Clearly, in the case of young and energetic Ranjeet, time engaged in Mayavada/Shankara bashing is more delightful than time engaged in Bhakti. If he (and the other Mayavada bashers) could only do this directly on the Advaita forum, then it would be more fun for everyone, but he is too chicken to try that. Cheers

I specifically wrote that in response a post where a solution was offered to give up on everything. Let us keep the context is perspective. Depends on how we define permanent here. There are plenty of happy people in this world - happy with the way their lives turned out , etc. - something that religion will not acknowledge as its promises are mostly for grand things to happen after death. There are 6.7 billion people on the planet - it is hard enough to know if my neigbor is happy or not - let alone the rest of the people. We cannot possibly decide on the absence of happiness across the board. To put it differently, I do not care if I am reborn or not. Neither do millions of other people. Not everyone is anxious to get off the planet to a "better place" as promised by religion. It is my opinion that such an anxiety can only exist if things are not going well here and now. The poster to whom I responded. It is not a rule that happiness lies through following natural instincts. But if one follows path of giving up everything that he is naturally inclined to do, then I do not see any chance for happiness. Cheers

The Mahabharata is huge. You can consider reading an abridged version. You can also read an abridged version of the Bhagavatam. And then for a well-rounded perspective, read some material (the Shiva Purana or the Vayu Purana) on Shiva, Ganesha, etc and definitely the Devi Bhagavata. That should keep you busy for sometime. And with these, you would have learnt a lot about Hindu Gods and the background of the religion. Cheers

One can give up all the above and still suffer. Chronic Migraines, dental problems, back-ache, bad knees, no food to eat...the list is endless. And one can have a family, friends and still be of good health and actually be happy - unbelievable as it sounds to some people who (through their association with religion) have managed to deeply condition themselves over the years to believe that life on earth equates to suffering. Suffering by definition is something that is beyond our control. For if we could do something about it, we would end it immediately and there would be no sufferng then. Through history we know that man is naturally gregarious - tends to live in societies and thrives in a family environment. Then some religions come along and tell you to do the exact reverse by going against nature - do not eat for taste, do not have sex, do not accumulate material possessions, do not get attached to people...everything that man's natural instincts drive him to do, these religions tell him not to do. A little bit of irony here - give up everything you like to do and you will be happy! In my opinion, such religious systems can only result in a repressed, depressed, confused, brain-numbed individual - for all we know, people who may have possibly been happier if they had never come in contact with such religions. Cheers

Yes, I knew people would not believe me. Here is evidence, http://krishnadharma.com/blog/?p=111 And just in case some people may wonder If I created that site myself and inserted bogus material to fool mankind (or something like that), here is corroboration - both in english and bengali. http://kksongs.org/language/unicode/anadikaramaphale_beng.html http://kksongs.org/songs/a/anadikaramaphale.html Happy Reading!

Karma (and therefore rebirth) is accepted as beginningless (anadi) not just by Advaita, Dvaita and V-Dvaita, but by Jainism and Buddhism too. Interestingly, Bhakti Vinoda has written about anadi Karma (beginningless Karma) in his Gitavali. I think I may be able to produce an exact reference if people do not believe me. Now if people want to twist his words around and say "that is not what he meant..." or "he could not not have meant that...", I have absolutely no objections. Your Guru, your interpretations...whatever works for you. But the way I read it, BVT has explicitly rejected the "fall theory" by accepting Anadi Karma. Beginningless does not mean eternal. The belief is though Karma is beginningless, it has an end and is therefore not eternal. Cheers

The one fundamental problem with a fall-down theory is, it can happen again. The soul caught in material bondage can strive very hard and go back to Krishna and then, repeat the same mistake all over again and fall down. The Gita very clearly says Krishna's abode is a place of no return. The only way one can accept a fall-down theory is to reject a direct statement by Krishna himself in favor of something said by someone else. Cheers