kaisersose

It is possible that the final juice was more a concoction than exclusively drawn from a single type of plant. We should also note that 3500 years is an awfully long time and the plant breeds would have changed - sometimes very significantly. The American eggplant has transformed itself a lot in just 100 years. But if the Soma was as highly valued as has been written, it is very unlikely that it would disappear. If anything, it should have become more widely available. Cheers

With due respect to all,<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:" /><o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> It is highly probable that the intoxicating Rig-vedic (and Persian Avesta too) Soma was Cannabis or some such other psychedelic source. Makes sense, as "hallucinogens do not merely amplify familiar states of mind, but rather induce experiences that are qualitatively different from those of ordinary consciousness" says Wikipedia. Obviously we tend to give these hallucinations a religious angle and interpret them as advanced states of the mind.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> And if the Soma was indeed Cannabis, then there need be no concern about having lost it. It is alive and well and continues to give people "elevated" experiences to this day. <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> 3500 years ago, with no electricity, tourism, etc., Rig-vedic people had very few options to escape boredom and the Soma being one of them, would have been highly revered. <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Cheers<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>

You did no such thing. It is a little hard to point out contradictons when you have not read a single work of his, don't you think? On the contrary, I pointed out several inconsistencies in your long ramblings - and I am not the only one. Nonsense. But I will call your bluff anyway. Where did Shankara say that? We both know you have absolutely no idea about that. This is called stupidity. If you cannot quote a single verse from Shankara, you should do the right thing and stay away from mentioning him and his doctrine in every other post. With your tiresome copy/paste nonsense, you are just making an idiot of yourself - in case you have not realized it yet. But if that is what you want, then go ahead. Cheers

You said and then and finally So Shankara's doctrine does not accept the concept of Brahman's mercy, but nonetheless Shankara asked for mercy? Again, I suggest you stop your nonsense on Advaita and stay away from the topic. No one is gonna miss your drivel on the topic, trust me. Cheers

Do you have evidence of this? Evidence that can be show in a quote or two without a barrage of two dozen quotes in one post? Thanks

In my opinion, the Purana authors (and Bible authors too) were unaware of the existence of Dinosaurs and Pterosaurs. Dinosaur discoveries have not been very common in the Indian Sub-continent. On the other hand, China and Europe had a lot more fossil discoveries. The Chinese thought they were dragon bones, Europeans thought they were from some giant species which was killed during the flood, etc. Cheers

The mistake you are making is, you are taking Puranic stories and trying to align them with the real world. It does not work. You cannot have both, so pick one of these. 1) Brahma created the earth, man was existing on the planet from day #1 and scientific evidence does not matter. 2) Modern Man has been around on the planet only for 200000 years. Purana stories are allegorical and are not to be interpreted literally. Option #2 is not atheistic, by the way. Cheers

Again, the starving, homeless guy in Congo who just witnessed his family slaughtered, is going to disagree with you on this. If I go tell him that he is suffering because his "perspective is distorted", he will spit in my face. It is easy for you and me to engage in idle speculate about how everything is just fine, a sport of the Lord, etc., because we have enough to eat, a roof on the head, our people are safe, there is no danger of raiding militants or Cholera, not to mention enough time to waste on discussion forums, etc. I have tons to say on the topic, but as I said before, this is an inappropriate discussion on a spiritual forum and so I do not want to. Cheers

Because dinosaurs lived on the planet earlier than humans? And it should be 65 million years ago - not 25 million. And what does paleontological evidence of dinosaurs -or lack thereof - have anything to do with God? Cheers

I believe what was meant was, a Vaishnava tradition allowing such an identity is not known before the time of the Chaitanya. Smriti (such as Mahabharata) can and will contain such inconsistencies. The commonly accepted norm is to reject such inconsistencies when they do not comply with Sruti interpretation. Based on this premise, no more justification is required to reject such identities - in the case of Tattvavada and as far as I know, in Sri Vaishnavism too. The Shvetashvatara, on the other hand, is a different story. Drawing implicit meanings for these verses requires a lot more ink. However, such debates first require a common ground. I quote from the Position Paper (http://www.dvaita.org/shaastra/iskcon.shtml). The basic approach of the system was pinning its faith on a single main source -- Bhâgavata, generally reducing the importance of all other sources accepted by the other schools of Vedânta. Its lack of critical examination by rival schools in debates has resulted in a system which is essentially not capable of being sustained in traditional disputation, as there are no accepted common ground rules essential for debate with the three main systems. This explains the fundamental drawback in these discussions. There is no concept of debate rules, etc., with GVs and it appears the practice with them is to quote any text as authority - so long as it addresses the immediate need - ranging from the Brahma Samhita to Radha Upanishads which no one outside that tradition ever heard about. Cheers

I was - and I believe Raghu was too - talking about God playing a role in the hunger of a child, etc. The system of Karma is in place, dictating the course of one's life, which is also somehow in parallel being shaped by one's choices through free-will. This seems to be the general consensus among most people here. In this collaboration of Karma and free-will, God is playing no role. Do you agree? Because if he can influence this in anyway, then he should be capable of playing a direct role in the child's hunger too. This system is already in place. We are not arguing that. We are talking about suffering on the planet and God's role specific to that. I'll ask you again. Who created the concept of pain and suffering? Was it Krishna or was it not created? If it is his creation, he is the cause of all misery. If it is not his creation and it always existed, then in his capacity as the Supreme with umlimited power, he should certainly be able to put an end to that nonsense, dont you think? Either way, if he exists, he is clearly endorsing suffering and looking on and therefore he takes the blame. To me, it is simply not acceptable that there is a Supreme God somewhere who is watching and not acting, when indescribable pain is inflicted on countless innocents on the planet. Past life Karma is a very unconvincing excuse. The way I see it, that guy in the past life was someone else. The child does not remember him and was in no way responsible for the other guy's misdeeds and should not suffer. Ironically, poverty is more a reason than anything else for someone to take to a sinful path and accrue more bad Karma. So I fail to see that as a correction method. I think I have made my points and do not want to repeat myself. So I am done. But I will be reading your responses. Cheers

These systems have have been carefully developed as objectively as possible, mainly to preserve their integrity over time. I will try to make this more concise. 1) Madhvacharya [12th century] laid down a doctrine which does not allow Shiva becoming Vishnu or vice-versa (That kind of an interchange is very Advaitic). His doctrine harmonizes all the leading scriptures of the day and provides a common teaching/message. 2) Valmiki Ramayana is the most authentic source for the story of Rama available. 3) Tulasidas [16th century] writes a new version of Ramayana where Shiva becomes Vishnu, etc. There was no noticeable attempt to comply with other scriptures. Now 1) and 2) are in sync. 2) and 3) are not exactly in sync as 3 contains extraneous material. 1) and 3) definitely contradict each other. How will you reconcile this? If I had to make that choice, (3) is good as long as there are no contradictions, but where there are contradictions, I would be inclined to pick (1) as it is more objective, (3) being more subjective. Cheers

OK…That works too. Suffering was either created or existed always. We will explore the latter a little bit. Agreed. I don’t see the relevance, but no arguments here. This should certainly be the case if the world and the individual continue to exist after Liberation. As long as the world exists the way we know it now, pain & suffering exist too. And the only way the Liberated soul can be situated in a state of pure bliss is to either be unaware of this ongoing suffering or be aware, but completely detached (P1). The simple answer is, the Advaita concept of Liberation does not create situation P1 as explained above. And since they claim a blissful state on Liberation too , their concept of of bliss is less taxing on the brain than in P1. I don’t see how. On Liberation, it is Jagat Mithya. Not just from that point of time, but the whole concept of duality never existed. Like I said, it is a real end to pain and suffering, which is not necessarily the case when the world continues to exist even after Liberation. Again, I am not advocating Advaita. And here is the problem. If we say God was not the creator and that he has no role in our daily lives, then he pretty much has no role at all! The whole logic of seeking Liberation is called into question. Why should I seek Hari and Liberation? Anyway, nothing is going to change in my lifetime. And if I fail and am born again, then I have no recollection of the past anyway and so it does not matter (The slate is erased clean). That guy (my next life) does not know me nor my lofty goals nor the pain and sufferings that I see around me. He has no conceivable relation to me at all. Any pain & suffering he sees will be all new to him. The point I am making is, if Krishna does not play a role in this very lifetime, then I fail to see the point of seeking Krishna (as Ranjeet was proposing earlier) for a time when I will have no recollection of this life and my reasons for seeking him. The atheist is not angry at God (you got that mixed up). That would be a paradox. I said, if I were a theist, I would be angry. Because then, there is an all-mighty God and he is not lifting a finger to help, which is orthogonal to most people around us. We would all help to whatever extent we can. I would have a lot of questions about the validity of my beliefs, etc. But as an atheist, since there is no one who can do anything about this (beyond us humans), the aforementioned problems no longer exist. This is the way things are and we do what we can to make them better and if not, we live with it. It is easier to do this, as there is no rationale behind our existence anyway. Cheers

That is probably because you are not aware of how a disciplined system has been developed over time and followed for a long time in India. Consider a Bhakta of the 21st century who is highly revered in his circles as someone who has frequent visions of Krishna, etc. Now he says it is time to (he has been sanctioned) enhance the Gita and adds 500 more verses. You are saying - because his followers have sentimental attachments to this individual - that these 500 verses are equally authoritative as the original 700 verses. If you think about it, you will realize that such a "dynamic" system cannot be sustained for long. Cheers

Do you really believe that? If yes, then we can extend this logic to pretty much everything and put an end to all communication and social living! And a happy new year to you as well! Cheers

Jeffster, You are saying man creates his own suffering (through past karma), but you are again failing to address the fundamental question of who created the concept of suffering in the first place and why? The starving child in Africa has absolutely no recollection of its past lives. What is the point in it suffering? Even setting the root cause aside, where is the much hyped about mercy from the Lord? Jndas appears to have more mercy than Krishna for he - in his limited capacity - is actually alleviating the hunger of several children, something which the all-mighty Lord is failing to do. If he cannot even end the hunger of an innocent child, what is the big deal about an all-powerful God? He seems to have time to help the Pandavas get their kingdom back, but is simply not interested in the kids of the Congo? There are people being killed there, as we are writing now. Haven't you had these questions yourself, at some point of time? How did you get past them? Cheers

Because there are multiple traditions and no two of them are in full agreement. If we intend to address the wider audience, then we should stick to quoting sources/concepts which have wider acceptance. Else, we have to specifically define the range of our intended audience. Cheers

On the start of this thread, you said Brahman is beyond mind and intellect. This means all his attributes are also beyond what we can comprehend, in which case we can neither say he has a form or that he is formless. Then you said ask an enlightened person and he will tell you. You should know by now, that different "enlightened" people say different things, though that is irrelevant for now. Then you said, accepting the Bhagavatam as an authority solves the problem. I don't get it. If it is beyond my mind and intellect, neither the enlightened soul nor the Bhagavatam can tell me if Brahman has a form and if yes, what that form is. Or even that Brahman is formless. Can you answer clearly and succinctly without a barrage of quotes that do not really address the question? Do you know what Brahman's form is? If not, why? How do you know he has a form at all? And is it a form that we can comprehend with our minds or not? If not, then the question pops up again - why are we calling it a form? Thanks

You should be able to say the exact same thing - as long as you what say is broadly applicable. If not, then you are preaching to a specific audience, in which case you should make that clear. Actually you are preaching to a specific audience by quoting authorities and interpretations specific to Gaudiya Vaishnavas. Hence, you are preaching to GVs only. When you fail to mention that on a general spiritual forum, then it is assumed to be for all and then you know what happens. Cheers

Just my opinion. Why did Krishna create misery and suffering in the first place? Even after you attain Krishna, the pain and misery in the world will still persist as before. Infants will starve to death in Africa, civilians will be slaughtered daily in the Congo and kids will be kidnapped and blinded to send them out to beg in Mumbai (a la slumdog millionaire). So for you to be blissful with Krishna, Krishna should erase all these memories from you and make you think (wrongly) that there is no pain and suffering in the world and keep you in ignorance. Or he should alter your genetic makeup to remove the compassion gene - that makes you feel for someone else's pain. If that happens, they you can be in bliss with no regard for the continued suffering on planet earth. Advaita offers a better solution as duality ends , really ending suffering in its true sense ( Not endorsing Advaita, for all the Mayavada bashers out there). If I were a theist, I would be angered at a God for creating an unfair world, with the troubles in Congo, Iraq and countless other places. Especially more so, when you hear some idiots claiming this is all a "sport". I would tell them to stop speaking nonsense unless they are willing to get blinded and beg on the streets for the rest of their lives - all as part of the "sport". Or alternatively, we can take this sport angle seriously if the starving people of the world are also willing to call their suffering a sport. As an atheist, it is relatively easier to deal with the situation as there is no source and therefore no one to blame. Cheers

Common sense? A 16th century North Indian Hindi text like the Ramcharitmanas cannot be expected to become an authority for all of India, no more than a 12th century South Indian Tamil work (Kambar's Ramayanam) is expected to be treated as a national level scripture. And there is no point in quoting a text to people who do not consider it an authority. I am aware that it does not. As I know, Tulasidas expanded certain areas which were not treated in detail by Valmiki. In other words, the Ramcharitmanas contains material that cannot be found in the Valmiki Ramayana. And this extraneous material is not authoritative to people who do not consider the 16th century work as scripture. So what does all this mean? It means when you quote such non-standard texts, you want to be explicit about the source. When you talk about Rama and fail to mention the source, then it is assumed that you are quoting from the Valmiki Ramayana - which was not true in your case. Cheers

You agree that Om = Krishna, but you think meditating on Om is a grave injustice to Krishna. No, it does not make sense to me and I don't know how it makes sense to you, either. But why should it make sense? If you feel that way, you feel that way. Instead of trying to find support for your line of thinking, just do what you feel like doing - meditate on Krishna in this case. Either way, you will not levitate - irrespective of meditating on Om or on Krishna or anything else. That is not going to happen ever and you can be sure of that. If you disagree, ask the people who told you for proof. They will not be able to provide any, beyond stories of how someone else was doing it. And you will not be able to see this someone levitate, because he or she is not geographically accessible or they do not do it anymore. Cheers

Thank you for your time. Just to be clear, I am not trying to prove anything; I do not have an alternate theory to replace yours. I am just questioning this line of thinking as I am not seeing a complete and consistent picture. This is much better. Now by your own admission, Bhagavan is beyond the mind and the intellect. How does the concept of a form attributed to Bhagavan make sense then for you to post on a discussion forum? As the discussion is within the scope of the mind? Here is the definition of form from standard dictionaries. 1. external appearance of a clearly defined area, as distinguished from color or material; configuration: a triangular form. 2. the shape of a thing or person. 3. a body, esp. that of a human being. 4. a dummy having the same measurements as a human body, used for fitting or displaying clothing: a dressmaker's form. 5. something that gives or determines shape; a mold. 6. a particular condition, character, or mode in which something appears: water in the form of ice. 7. the manner or style of arranging and coordinating parts for a pleasing or effective result, as in literary or musical composition: a unique form for the novel. As you can see, all these definitions make it clear that the concept of a form lies within the scope of the mind and the intellect. So how does your logic flow then? I am not saying Bhagavan is formless, but how can you say Bhagavan has a form, especially in line with your above admission that Bhagavan is beyond the mind and the concept of forms is within the mind? If I had not put forth these "logical" questions, it would never have occurred to you to bring out these arguments. So in my opinion, my questions are not futile. They are addressing a very key concept. Cheers

But is it Jesus or you? Jesus did not take the position of conditional forgiveness at any time. On the contrary, he actually asked his father to forgive thsoe who were torturing him. This reaffirms that Jesus takes an unconditional approach. So in this case, if Jesus does not get offended by critics, how can this be considered an offense against him? But you got upset, which means this is an offense against you, so let us keep Jesus out of the picture and see it for what it is. You have beem offended and you have decided not forgive the offender which runs counter to your original post of personal forgiveness. If there is such an instruction, then you are correct. But it still conflicts with the concept of forgiveness preached by Jesus. And you have in the past, mocked several people who are considered "saintly" by others. So this instruction is not really something that covers all bases anyway. Again, if we pick and choose people we will forgive (your present position), then there is nothing special about that deserving a new discussion thread. Everyone on the planet already practices conditional forgiveness - forgive sometimes, and not forgive some other times. Nothing new there. Cheers

Wonderful, I can wait. Cheers