Kali_Upasaka

There is no Saivism in Bengal. Has never been there for thousands of years. You have only Smarthas, Sakthas and Vaishnavas. Sankaracharya is the founder of Advaita. Saivas believe in one of the three schools of Hindu philosophy, namely Advaita (monism), Vishishtadvaita (qualified monism) and Dvaita (dualism) depending on the sect. Surprised. But true.

He also composed Bhaja Govindam and many other Vishnu/Krishna sthudhis. The Saivas do not accept him as one of their acharyas. Sankaracharya is the founder of organized Smartha religion. Talking about worship and composition of poems, Guru Gobind Singh conducted thousands of Chandi Yagnas and composed a couple of poems on Chandi. That does not make him a Saktha. Here is a site which seeks to explain this. http://www.info-sikh.com/PageDurga.html

Having lived in the midst of communists most of my life, I am aware of this criticism. Even if you answer this the next question would be about Human sacrifice in the Puranas. How does it concern the modern day Hindus? What happened thousands of years back need not be justified now. Books have been written about Human sacrifice and Judaism. Does the modern Jew bother about that? Accept it as things which happened thousands of years back when society and social norms were different. Even about some present practices, my answer is that I do not believe in such practices. My sampradhaya does not accept such practices. theist is correct in his response.

Nothing that matters. But I would request the members to remember that Sankaracharya did not preach Saivism, nor is he accepted as one of the Acharyas of Saivism.

It is a very bad trend in Hinduism today that Astrologers have become religious advisors. How can anyone come to a conclusion that the Sri Yantra which has been worshipped for 15 years suddenly turned harmful? The problem is that we expect Astrologers to provide answers to questions which have no answer. The entire theory of Karma is based on the fact that you can not explain the reasons for everything happening in your life. The Cause and Effect relationship. There is no cause for many happenings in our life. This is the effect of Karma. But when you ask an astrologer he thinks he has to give a reason to get more Dakshina. The common reasons given are; 1. Curse of the Gods. Very safe bet. Ask us to do some Pujas. The assumption here is that GOD is waiting to find a fault with you and punish you. This is basically against all the teachings of the scriptures. The latest trend in this is saying that you have neglected your Kula Devata. Handy in these times when most people have left their native villages. So we have people running around searching for their Kula Devata. 2. Curse of the ancestors. Again a very safe bet since most people do not perform the shraddha ceremonies. Again the assumption is that the ancestors are waiting for an opportunity to curse their descendants. 3. Murtis in the Puja room/house - Point out that something is wrong. Sri Yantra is a safe target because most people have no idea about it. They would not tell this to a Sri Vidya Upasaka. Other Murtis like Nataraja, Dancing Ganesa are supposed to cause instability. 4. Sometimes the Deity you worship. If you worship Durga you will find astrologers in the South advising you to worship a Soumya ( in their opinion) Goddess. 5. In the past they used to advise a second marriage. Now it is not possible. Now the fault is not with Astrology. But with us. Astrologers earn their living through astrology. So they have to please us, their customers. So when they can not find any cause in the horoscope, they resort to any one of the above reasons. Narayanan, you have suffered some set back because of your Karma. The only way to get over this to appeal to GOD. Only GOD can burn your karmas away. Recite Lalita Trisathi every day.

Mahameru is three dimensional and Sri Yantra two dimensional. If you are not convinced, just look at the bottom of a crystal Maha meru. You will find the Sri Yantra.

Lalitha Sahasranama Stotra can be recited by anyone. But Lalita Sahasranama Mantra Japa requires initiation from a Guru. The Nyasas and the Mantras for Nyasas depend on the Sampradhaya. This is not like the Gayatri Mantra which has been standardized. Just a word of caution.

Aswamedha was a well known sacrifice. Your quotes are regarding the Aswamedha. It is mentioned in the Wikipedia article under Criticism, controversy and propaganda.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashvamedha I have the original translation. I will check it. I will have to see whether if the verses have been omitted. This is the first post of the member after a period of 4 years. I am not convinced of the genuineness of the query. So no more coments from me regarding this.

Please see your inbox.

A Bhaktha is one who loves GOD. I had a very interesting discussion with a Vaishnava (not Gaudiya) sometime back. He refused to accept the people who worship in temples as Bhakthas at all. According to him only Para bhakthi is Bhakthi. Again according to their belief system You can qualify to be a Bhaktha only after you have mastered Karma and Jnana yogas. After you have reached Atma Chaitanyam. To me Bhakthi is Love for GOD. Just because someone goes to the temple for getting over a murder charge, does not make him inferior to me. Who am I to decide? To me Saranagathi is all. A person who does Saranagathi does not decide whether he wants Mukthi and what type of Mukthi or salvation or whatever you call it. Total surrender means leaving everything to GOD. Do not ask for anything.

Now I remember to have read somewhere that Bhairavi Brahmani belonged to the Gaudiya Vaishnavsm. But this is something which we had discussed among our friends. I am not able to recollect the name of the book. The only known Tantrik sect in Vaishnavism was Sahajiya Vaishnavism. Wikipedia says Bhairavi Brahmani asked Mathur Babu to convene a meeting of the scholars where Vaishnava Charan a Vaishnavite scholar declared Sri Ramakrishna to be an Avatar. You can read about it here http://books.google.com/books?id=6qVMrumO-g0C&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90&dq=Bhairavi+Brahmani&source=bl&ots=-ktRzWfQHN&sig=Kq8VMJkhxImd2f5jtUwGM5MleJU&hl=en&ei=V29ESuaCL4aCkQWupr2kDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7 http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:ikHVg_A2OTAJ:www.kathamrita.org/kathamrita/k1intro.htm+vaishnav+charan&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=firefox-a So Bhairavi Brahmani is a riddle. How did she know about Gaudiya Vaishnavism? Why was she carrying all those books? How does a Tantrik worship Raghubir Sila? I have not written this to prove anything. Only to show the close association of Vaishnavism in the life of Sri Ramakrishna.

I have put raghu and chandu_69 on my ignore list.

I have put raghu and chandu_69 on my ignore list.

Yes. You are correct. Thank you. The Indus Valley seals are the earliest forms. Of course we still know very little about them. There a number of spurious claims. You are referring to the Jnana Kanda of the Vedas. The Upanishads. These came much later than the Karma Kanda. Some of the later Upanishads are of the same age as the epics. But all of them came at least a couple of thousand years later than Rig Veda.

What the sadhu told you was the belief in his tradition. Sampradhaya as we call it. There is no need for replacing OM with Hrim. It is wrong. Om is the Pranava Mantra and Vaidic in origin. Hreem is considered the Tantric equivalent of OM. It is Suddha Bhavaneswari Mantra. About reciting Rudra again this is from the Vedas. There was a ban on women reciting the Vedas. But this ban did not take into account historical facts like 1. Vak Ambirini and other Vedic Rishis. 2. Rishis like Gargi and Lopamudra. Gargi was the one who decided finally in the great debate that Yagnavalkya has won. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gargi Lopamudra is the founder of one of the schools of Sri Vidya. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lopamudra Again it was Ubhaya Bharathi the wife of Mandana Mishra who acted as a Judge in the debate between Adi Sankaracharya and Mandana Mishra. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%E1%B9%87%E1%B8%8Dana_Mi%C5%9Bra So this ban on women which came in later is no longer considered valid. So please continue to recite Rudra. Sambo Mahadeva !!!

There is a lot of misunderstanding about Tantras. Most theories are based on the seminal work of Arthur Avalon ( John Woodroffe). Since he was based in Kolkata and had material available only from Eastern India he based his works on those. What has never been studied is the Tantric works of Maharashtra, Gujarat and South India. There are more Kali temples in Tamil Nadu than in Bengal. Some of them from 800 A.D. There are hundreds of Kali (Bhadrakali/Bhagavathi) temples in Kerala. The priest in all the temples in Kerala are called Tantris and follow Tantras. The biggest temple for Lalita is in Tripura. In fact the state is named after her. Lalita Tripurasundari. The practice of Sri Vidya in South India is not the only one. There is a Kaula Sri Vidya. Worship of Kali is the normal practice. Panchamakara was common under Kaula Sri Vidya.

The second quote proves my point. http://www.indianetzone.com/9/purva_mimamsa_philosophy.htm I would also like to believe that Temples and Murtis existed from the Vedic times. But so far not even a single temple from the time Before Christ has ben discovered, though many Buddhist Viharas have been discovered.

Theories, Sant and practice are different. BTW when everyone thought Sri Ramakrishna was mad because he went into Samadhi often, it was Bhairavi Brahmani who said that it is the highest Bhava. It is she who first said that Sri Ramkrishna was an Avatar. She convened a meeting of scholars (mostly Vaishnavites) to prove that he is an Avatar. The name Ramakrishna was most probably given by her. She was a Gaudiya Vaishnavite. I do not think I can convince you. But any assumption that the followers of Advaita are opposed to Krishna will be foolish to say the least. Most of the devotees of Krishna in India are followers of Advaita. There are more Krishna temples (tonnes of them) in the small state of Kerala than in Bengal.

http://www.indianetzone.com/9/purva_mimamsa_philosophy.htm

http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Purva_Mimamsa/id/23121

Yes. But as I said earlier what he practiced was pure Bhakthi and total surrender. Saranagatha. Ram Prasad Sen was a Tantrik of the highest order. But he was also a Bhaktha who believed in Saranagatha. Confusing. But factually true.

Sri Ramakrishna was basically a Kali Bhaktha. And also one who was a devotee of Krishna and Chaitanya Maha Prabhu whom he considered as GOD. If you are interested I can post quotes.

The Vedic period was thousands of years before the period of the Itihasaas. Ramayana and Mahabharata. The Purva Mimansa which based of the Karma Kanda of the Vedas does not even believe in a GOD. IDOL worship dates back only to the Itihasic/Puranic period. But I would like to always add that these are based on the present available evidence.

I did not find any mention of idol worship in the four Vedas. They were only concerned about conducting Yagnas. There are many followers of Ramana Maharishi who do not worship idols. That is Suddha Advaita. Not the modified Advaita propagated by the Ramakrishna Mission and the Smarthas.

There was no worship of Murtis during the Vedic period. Though it is not essential in the path of Advaita and Yoga, it is definitely essential in Bhakthi. In Mantra yoga the Mantra becomes the Deity once you have got Mantra Siddhi. But even in Mantra Yoga Bhakthi is dominant. So the need for the Murti.