primate

... Hinduism is not Krishna consciousness. Just ask any Advaitin.

Do you mean Advaita is Hinduism and Krishna consciousness is not? Or do you mean Advaita is Krishna consciousness and Hinduism is not? Or do you mean Vaishnavism, including Advaita, is Krishna consciousness, but Hinduism is not per se? What do you mean?

Anyway, I think Advaita is compatible with Krishna consciousness. The difference between Advaita and Dvaita or Gaudiya Vaishnavism, seems to be mainly the different readings of the fundamental relation between God (or Krishna) and individual souls (or Jivas); I.e., monism versus dualism or inconceivable oneness and difference.

After all, Adi Shankara apparently wrote: "Worship Govinda, Worship Govinda, Worship Govinda. Oh fool! Rules of grammar will not save you at the time of your death"..

I use simple rule and logic.evil cannot play any tricks in a place where God name is chanted,thats it kaisersoseji.It is our confidence which counts while chanting shri Hari naam,if no confidence we have while laying ourselves to his holy feet its of no use and even a small aunt can frighten us forget ghost!

There seems to be no logical reason to assume that ghosts don’t exist. If you believe in the existence of material (human) consciousness, as well as in non-material – or spiritual consciousness, then why can’t different forms of consciousness exist in between, which are neither strictly material nor purely spiritual? Moreover, our own conscious position appears to be evolving within just such a continuum. Perhaps one day we’ll all see ghosts..

what freewill means to me;

 

when i finally decided to elope with my pregnant girlfriend(wife) instead of an abortion( i was still a 3rd year medical student).

 

when i decided to be krsnah conscious despite of the opposition from my mother( a devout catholic).

 

when i decided to continue smoking after suffering from a heart attack.

 

whatever the consequences that may arise from these 3 examples i have to pay. no freewill no payment or reward. this is my opinion.

You may be right doc. However, free will implies absolute duality, because free will must be totally independent, or else it wouldn’t be free. Personally I don’t believe in absolute duality. And this is also not Gaudiya Vaishnavism.

Maybe something like relative free will exists, which is 'inconceivably free and not free'. We might be free only within certain limits or restrictions. E.g., we may be free to choose any path, as long as it leads to a predestined goal..

what if i don`t meet your standards?

 

What are my standards? We had some nice discussions before, about 'conscious chaos' and other topics. And when it comes to scriptural knowledge, I’m just a beginner. So (although this is slightly off topic ) I would be happy if you (or anyone else) could point out where in Vedic literature it is implicitly or explicitly stated that 'free will' exists or, for that matter, that it doesn’t. I can only think of statements like: "God knows (is) the past the present and the future", or "God is everything and God is unchanging", or "God is the only doer", or "the apparent passage of time is the product of maya (illusion)", which all seem to imply that everything is pre-determined and that individual free will doesn’t exist. And, of course, the concept of karma seems to indicate that free will is an illusion.

However, one can’t be sure. The simple fact that nowhere in the Vedic literature it is explicitly stated that free will doesn’t exist, might point in another direction. And although I have some personal theories about time and consciousness, supporting the idea that time (as in dynamic differential equations), causality (as in action reaction like dynamics) and, consequently, individual free will don’t exist, I wouldn’t argue that this holds true at the level of God. And if God has free will and we are part of God, the illusion of individual free will may well be God’s free will in disguise; just like our material world or our individual consciousness, may be absolute reality or God’s consciousness in disguise. It seems impossible to say whether this means we have free will or not.

So please feel free to comment if you have any ideas..

Well, we are still debating (I guess).. But you're welcome of course..

Maybe he is not a 'doctor' in the sense of a 'physician'. E.g., I’m also a 'doctor (Phd)', but in the sense of a 'neuro-scientist'..

The way I see it is:

 

Since we are in a world of duality, there is "free-will" and there is "kamic reaction" both.

 

Karma to me is how molecules bounce off eachother and similarly how vibrations bounce off each other, and/or how they transmute each other's paths.

 

One is born [or one finds oneself in a given situation] with facility do acquire/accomplish something

 

IMO, destiny [or "pre-destiny"] may be pre-destined BUT . . . it simply does not exist in any real way in any real place nor is it even recorded anywhere [vs the book of life that records ones actions as --read by Yamaraja--but that is in retrospect/after the fact/a post-review] --so, destiny is when past karma comes-back [good or bad] when circumstances allow for it to be manifest.

 

It is like audio "echos" are destined to be heard when the enviroment is just right. It would seem that the law of Karma is unleashed only when IT has a path with least resistance to accomidate it. Karma (Karmic-retribution) seems to like to catch multi-birds with one stone when the birds that are due a stone in the head are clustered together --otherwise Karma (Karmic-retribution) is never in a rush.

 

Karma is the flux of an ocean composed of bubbles that envelopes us and whose ripples [especially the vibrations that one causes oneself] bounce & rebound back off of ourselves eventually --but that occurs when all the factors (usual suspects) are in alignment.

"Karma means 'deed' or 'act' and more broadly names the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction that governs all life" (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma).

You suggest that karma may be produced by our free will. Free will seems to imply that, as a result of its action, the state of the universe is altered. Furthermore, the alteration is not pre-determined or predictable. Nor is this alteration random: free will flows from our consciousness, not from statistical averages. It also seems irreversible, in the sense that it is somehow tied to the passage of time.

Now, where do free will and consciousness come from? According to Vedic literature, they have the same origin as our entire universe: the one all pervading God. Actually, I think that our universe is our consciousness and our consciousness is part of God. And if free will flows from consciousness, then free will is part of God. Basically this means that individual free will is an illusion.

The existence of free will implies the existence of time. At a particular moment in time we want something to be realized in the future, at which point our original wish will be in the past. However, the past and the future obviously do not exist. Only the present (including our present memories of the past) exists. Thus, the passage of time is an illusion and therefore free will is an illusion.

As far as the results (or karmic reactions) of our (involuntary) actions (or karma) are concerned, I believe we agree that these are beyond free will. We do not control karmic reactions. And if (as argued) free will doesn’t exist, we also do not control our actions or karma. This ultimately means, that everything is pre-destined..

"pre-destiny" is not scientific.

 

Well thought-out "pre-planning" is scientific --which includes surveying and establishing a true foundation upon which to build a real edifice.

 

But remember there are designers who dream and then there are builders who know-how-to-get the thing off-the-ground.

 

If you go to Las Vegas to gamble:

 

And you say, "I have a scientific method of determining the outcome of my 'Black-jack' Cards" [ie: "Card-Counting"] ---I would be lawfully expelled from the Gambling Hall.

 

If, rather, I announced, "It is pre-destined that I win a fortune"

the management will compliment you with free amenities --because that is the kind of sucker that is born every day that keeps the Gambling Hall in business. Also, if in the end, one losses all the wealth they arrived with . . . it was their destiny to do so!

 

is that clear?

Bhaktajan(?)

Science is the general enterprise of gaining true formal knowledge, which can be verified empirically through our senses, or otherwise in scientific experiments. Applied scientific knowledge is called technology. Science itself, however, is basically empirical – or experimental philosophy.

The question whether everything is predestined, may be a (predestined) scientific question, that can be verified in principle, in (predestined) scientific experiments, or otherwise through (predestined) empirical observations. So when you say "pre-destiny is not scientific", you are correct only in the sense that there exists as yet no hard scientific evidence of "pre-destiny".

You seem to believe in Karma. Then how do you reconcile the idea of Karma with "non-pre-destiny"? Personally I think that our consciousness (everything) is more or less free to experience reality as it desires. However, reality itself must be beyond our free will, in order to implement this meticulous rule of Karma. If Karma is true, I wouldn’t be surprised if ultimately 'everything' is predestined..

...

Adiyen feels sorry for everyone who argued to disprove each other and thus FAILING:( in the very purpose. It is something like if you are destined to preach and follow SriVaishnavism, you will and if you are destined to preach Saivism, you will and you will also try to do the same to Christianity, Islam, Buddhishm, Jainism, Sikhism, Zorastrianism if you are destined to . Ultimately it all comes down to karma. What I want everyone to do is, stop discussing the superiority instead respect others' sentiments and at the same time with utmost belief in acharya(guru) and your marga path) do your karma and give your fullest to get rid of this material world and attain paramapadam.

...

 

You may be correct in your supposition that everything we do is predestined. So why are we doing it? Exactly, because we are predestined to do so. We don’t have much of a choice in the whole matter. You see, any discussion may be predestined, but at the same time it might serve a (predestined) purpose by solving a question or a problem from which both parties benefit; be it through better understanding or better religious practice. How else do you expect religion to evolve? Isn’t it natural that (although predestined) this will involve much communication and discussion as an integral part of the whole (predestined) process, just like eating, sleeping, mating, fighting, praying ..?

Hmmm. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Father is Brahma, The Son is Siva and the Holy Spirit is the Paramatma Hiranyagarbha Visnu.

Hmm, interesting. However, I would say Brahman/Vishnu is the Father, Vishnu/Shiva is the Son, and Consciousness is the Holy Spirit..

For what it is worth, contemporary physics will never get it right, simply because they have "time" all wrong. And from a science dominated (crippled?) with the baggage of Genesis I, one can expect nothing more.

 

That is not to say that contemporary physics cannot develop new knowledge. It has, and continues to do so. Its practioners just miss the mark in relating what they generate to reality. But not from want of trying. Those who try and invoke different paradigms, particularly as glimpsed in extant hindu documents, sometims may have better luck.

 

The Brahma Astra for instance, can be built, in my most humble opinion - though there is a very narrow window within which that is do able. A window provided by the elegent experiments of Aspect et. al., a narrow window of ca.2.3 mm or there abouts. I would be interested to know if there are hard core physicists here, and whether they can derive this window's dimension as well. This appears after all, an out of the way web site to ask this question, but I will stop by and check often. Sorry, no more clues.

 

Peace.

Time is just a theoretical concept that we use to mathematically describe change. And our perception of time (or sense of time) derives from our perception of irreversible change in this world.

A (mostly) hidden quantum mechanism must necessarily underlie our conscious experience of reality, in order to account for 'quantum non-locality' or the effect of quantum entanglement. All manifest quantum events in our world must then necessarily constitute only a small discontinuous subset or fraction of complete reality.

I propose that this underlying mechanism or original quantum principle, is like a conscious point or singularity that continuously describes a complex non-linear (chaotic) and faster-than-light trajectory in space. In fact, the speed of such a 'non-local hidden variable', must be almost infinite (relative to the speed of light) in order to produce all our manifest conscious experience as a limited (discontinuous) subset of its continuously changing state or position in space. This subset could be a particular 'phase-projection' of the original chaotic oscillation itself. Our actual consciousness may then simply be a function of a specific frequency or sound that is present in the oscillation, like a specific higher harmonic tone (Om).

Anyway, if such a physical scenario is true, then time doesn’t exist as an actual dimension of reality. Only a specific complex sequential order of manifest quantum events exists, which projects all material structure and dictates all perceived change in our world. Such a hypothesis can in theory be verified by a measuring device that detects whether any two quantum events ever coincide exactly. It predicts that there will always be an (infinitesimal) interval between any two quantum events, such as between the correlated wave function collapse of two entangled photons in the experiments of Aspect et. al. Although (much) faster than the speed of light, non-local quantum phenomena can never exactly coincide. Thus, it is predicted that 'spooky action at a distance' is not instantaneous. An experiment to test this might be feasible, if intervals between non-local entangled quantum events are of some measurable magnitude.

Sorry, no more clues..

So then Prabhupada was wrong when he wrote in the Gita that the light of the stars is the reflection of the Sun?

I believe Prabhupada saw the overall spiritual picture correctly. The fact that he made some (minor) mistake in his many translations of the original Vedic texts doesn’t diminish that.

Alain Aspect (born 15 June 1947 in Agen) is a French physicist and alumnus of the École Normale Supérieure de Cachan in France. In the early 1980s, with collaborators in France, he performed the crucial "Bell test experiments" that showed that Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen's reductio ad absurdum of quantum mechanics, namely that it implied 'ghostly action at a distance', did in fact appear to be realised when two particles were separated by an arbitrarily large distance. A correlation between their wave functions remained, as they were once part of the same wave-function that was not disturbed before one of the child particles was measured.

 

If quantum theory is correct, the determination of an axis direction for polarisation measurement of one photon, forcing the wave function to 'collapse' onto that axis, will influence the measurement of its twin. This influence occurs despite any experimenters not knowing which axes have been chosen by their distant colleagues, and at distances that disallow any communication between the two photons, even at the speed of light.

 

Aspect's experiments were considered to provide overwhelming support to the thesis that Bell's inequalities are violated in its CHSH version. However, his results were not completely conclusive, since there were so-called loopholes that allowed for alternative explanations that comply with local realism.

 

Stated more simply, the experiment provides strong evidence that a quantum event at one location can affect an event at another location without any obvious mechanism for communication between the two locations. This has been called "spooky action at a distance". However, these experiments do not allow faster-than-light communication, as the events themselves are inherently random.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Aspect

 

I would say, (quantum) events are inherently 'chaotic'. And if quantum entanglement or quantum correlation is real, a faster-than-light chaotic mechanism must underly physical reality..

Our entire material universe must be the product of our consciousness. And your individual world only exists, because your individual consciousness exists. Your consciousness is real, therefore your world is real. Possibly, you can change your consciousness by free will, which may change your conscious experience of reality. However, this doesn’t mean that reality itself can be changed by you.

The question remains, as to what extent can we alter our conscious experience of reality? Could this be to the extent of what appear to be purposeful actions in this world..?

Ultimately the principle of Karma implies that everything we experience is predetermined, so 'free will' doesn’t exist, or at least it is extremely limited. It certainly can’t exist on the level of physical action. It may only exist on the level of consciousness. If this is true, you ask "then what is the use of praying to God?". You can also ask: What is the use of eating? What is the use of sleeping? What is the use of reproducing? What is the use of living? The answer must be that you simply do not have a choice. The illusion of free will is part of the illusion of material reality (Maya) in which independently acting individuals exist. But we are not our body, therefore we cannot act. We can only be conscious..

Originally Posted by Sonic Yogi

then you are saying that they their power is UNLIKE that of Lord Vishnu.

you just contradicted Srila Prabhupada who says they have power LIKE Lord Vishnu.

If they are not all-pervasive, they are not LIKE Lord Vishnu

Prabhupada didn't say that They (Lord Brahma and Lord Siva) are endowed with a special power equal to that of Lord Visnu. He used the term 'like', which indicates a difference. Something that is different from all-pervading, cannot be all-pervading (or God)..

Originally Posted by Sonic Yogi

You seem to have missed the part that says "They are endowed with a special power like that of Lord Viṣṇu"

They are endowed with special power like that of Lord Vishnu.

If "Vishnu" means all pervading then having "special power like Lord Vishnu", means all-pervading.

All the guna-avatars are all-pervading in the universe.

Otherwise, how does Lord Brahma and Lord Siva hear the prayers of their devotees?

It is elementary siddhanta that all the guna-avatars are all pervading in the universe.

Only a dimwit would not know that.

You seem to have missed the part that says "like that of Lord Visnu". This power is not the same; it's not 'all-pervasiveness'..

"They [Lord Brahma and Lord Siva] are endowed with a special power like that of Lord Visnu, who [Lord Visnu] is actually all-pervading in their [Lord Brahma's and Lord Siva's] activities."

So, Lord Visnu pervades the activities of Lord Brahma and Lord Siva..

Once again, this is degenerating into a host of opinions, counter-opinions, and free-thinking.

'Inconceivable simultaneous oneness and difference' seems to be the

problem. Everything that is not God (Brahman) must be different from God.

So, how can it simultaneously be God?

God is everything (not vice versa). This solves the issue of oneness. And

everything is a fraction of God, which solves the issue of difference.

Furthermore, God is Consciousness. So, everything is a fraction of

Consciousness. Our (material) world is our human consciousness, which is a

mere fraction of God (or total Consciousness or Reality).

Why is this inconceivable? Because we are not used to include time in the

overall equation of Reality. God’s Consciousness is continuous (non

fractional in time). However, somehow, our human consciousness is merely

a fraction of total Consciousness. We are only conscious 'every now and

then'. So, we are only conscious of 'a limited set' of total Consciousness, at

particular points in time or intervals. This is 'simultaneous oneness and

difference'.

Finally, God is unchanging, because God is a singularity. God is a conscious

point, smaller than the smallest, without form. Form is created by God’s

'dynamics', or His 'energies', or His 'continuous positional change in

geometrical space and time'. Any particular subset of total Consciousness

creates a unique, and more or less complete, conscious experience of

Reality. These infinitely many different realities are all consistent, because

they all derive from this one singular Consciousness or God..

...

I am trying to determine if there is a clear and consistent way to understand Shiva's position in the Gaudiya worldview without making obvious errors in scriptural interpretation. Perhaps there is, and perhaps there is not, but what I have seen so far leads me to believe that the Gaudiyas have endorsed contradictory viewpoints regarding Shiva, in contrast to their viewpoint about all other devatas which is that they are clearly mortals. Again, I request knowledgeable GVs to comment with specific references to pUrvAchAryas' writings on the subject.

 

I guess Gaudya Vaishnavas would explain this contradiction through Achintya Bedha Abedha Tattva. The philosophy of Achintya Bedha Abedha refers to the simultaneous, inconceivable oneness and difference between God and His energies, the latter of which are emanations from Him. These energies constitute both the jivas and the material universes. The idea is that while both are equal in quality, a difference exists in quantity. Difference and non-difference together represent a complete understanding of the relationship between Brahman and the jivas. Now, like the jivas, Shiva is an emanation of the Lord’s energies that is qualitatively equal, but quantitatively different from Brahman..

Maybe the question should be whether or not there is any choice in this world. Are we freely acting individuals, or just conscious spectators of all complex prearranged events unfolding. The principle of Karma seems to indicate the latter. And we are not our body, so we really cannot act. Even science must admit that causality (action reaction like dynamics) ultimately doesn’t exist at the most fundamental (quantum) level of reality, and therefore it is unreasonable to assume that causality exists at the manifest macroscopic level of reality. Apparently, only consciousness exists.

In this perspective, once the mechanism underlying reality was set in motion, there has been no way to change its evolution. We cannot prevent earthquakes or other natural disasters form happening. Likewise, we cannot prevent wars or other mass killings. The scriptures provide metaphorical tales, that seem to teach us to simply accept this fact. Arjuna didn’t have a choice. This mass killing was inevitably going to happen, driven by some collective Karmic mechanism. Krishna simply told Arjuna to accept it.

The fact that the Bible (old testament) calls for religious war against the infidels, is just a part of the perfect order of reality, in which everything is in tune and exactly as it should be. Future religious wars may be predestined to happen. We are just consciously experiencing the whole show. Even the process of becoming aware of this, or becoming consciously enlightened e.g., through religious practice or insight, must be predestined per individual as a part of this universal order. It will not change anything..

Ida: Missing link found?

 

Okay, Darwinists, feel free to take a victory lap, said Allahpundit in Hot Air. The American Museum of Natural History on Tuesday unveiled "Ida," a 47-million-year-old fossil of a baby monkey ancestor. Ida—more formally known as Darwinius masillae—is "a missing link, not necessarily the missing link, although insofar as it seems to confirm Darwin's speculation about transitional species, it's a huge coup for fans of Uncle Charlie."

 

Darwinius masillae is definitely an "awesome fossil," said University of Minnesota, Morris, biologist PZ Myers in Scienceblogs.com, but all the hype about how she's the missing link in human evolution is annoying. Ida is just one of many, many links in the evolution of humans—and chimpanzees and rhesus monkeys—so she isn't really "at all unique as a representative of the complex history of life on Earth."

 

Granted, the researchers over-hyped this find to get attention, said Thomas H. Maugh II and Tina Susman in the Los Angeles Times, but "the fossil is certainly a gem." Scientists have mostly pieced together the story of evolution using "fossilized skulls, jawbones, and the occasional foot." But the lemur-like Darwinius masillae was so well preserved when her remains settled into the bottom of a lake that we know what her last meal was—berries and a salad—so there's good reason to hope that studying her will fill gaps in our knowledge.

 

http://www.theweek.com/article/index/96718/Ida_Missing_link_found

For the record, an "inferior" Saguna Brahman is not part of Advaita.

 

The concept of inferior and superior exist only in doctrines which posit a hierarchy of Gods.

 

Cheers

A hierarchy of 'manifestations of Brahman' or 'gods' (including humans) is conceivable and logically tenable, as well as fully compatible with the philosophical framework of Advaita! Most notably, the existence of fractal (or hierarchical self-similar) structure in mathematical chaotic systems, provides good (scientific) evidence for such a reality. In a mathematical chaos analogy of reality, Nirguna Brahman is the fundamental mechanism of reality and Saguna Brahman is its emergent, hierarchical self-similar (fractal) structure or form. Ultimately, these are non-different..

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I think the answer might be simple. Starting from the philosophical premise that everything is One, it follows that nothing within our conscious experience exists independently, not even the soul or the true self. Oneness means that God (Brahman) is ultimately everything. So, God is you, i.e., your conscious soul or true self; God is your personal mind, intellect and ego; God is all your perceptions, thoughts and idea's; thus, God is your body and all other material manifestations; and God is Krishna/Vishnu, Shiva, Allah, the father, etcetera..

At least I'm sure Bija posted here, well after the Australian bush fires of February 2009.