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Kali_Upasaka

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Posts posted by Kali_Upasaka


  1. 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.


  2. 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


  3.  

    These quotes appear to countenance some human sacrifice, so now I am concerned about how to reply to that.

    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.


  4.  

    Glad you came back as the real you, Ranjeetmore!:)

     

    While it`s true Sankaracarya preached (Sivaism), I don`t think Buddha`s Buddhism is non-different from Sankaracarya`s Mayavadism. Both said the same thing( advaita), " Me and God are One." So, comparing Sankaracarya and Buddha makes no sense. Was it Krsna Himself who said, " ... I`m Lord Siva."? So, while Buddha to you is Bhagavan, I think, Sankaracarya ( Siva) is a Bhagavan, too. Sankaracarya is an incarnation of Lord Siva. Just like Buddha is an incarnation of Krsna. Both are simultaneously One and yet different( integral monism).

    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.


  5.  

    Dear swamiji or any learned members.

    We were having sri yantra at home and it has been worshpped for around 15 years. During my job abroad, my family members consulted an astrologer in kerala and he said this sri yantra is not done correctly and it is harmfull. Listening to him, they gave the yantra to him and he destroyed it.

    This has happened after we moved to the new own house

    I did not know about this and was shocked when I came to know about this. Subsequently I had to resign my job abroad and had to return home. I am very much worried that whether this is because of loosing the sri yantra. I had been worhipping a maha meru (which is also there at home for the past 8 years). I have observed brahmacharya pooja and worshipped the Meru for the past 4 months with austerity. I do not know whether this will remedy the ill effects of loosing the sri yantra. If possible, please let me know what other remedy I have to do to correct the mistake.

    I also do not know whether my sufferings is because of loosing the sri yantra or because of the new house. Please kindly guide me or drop me a mail at the following address pvnarayanan@.. my humble thanks

    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.


  6. 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.


  7.  

    advaitas who perform krsna bhakti are certainly not foolish...but they surely are stubborn...Gauranga is shouting,"Don't ask for mukti ! Don't ever ask for mukti !!"

     

    and they are adamant.

    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.


  8.  

    gaudiya vaishnavite who followed tantra..I'm not taunting...but can you explain how it works ?????

     

    i mean...how ??

    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

     

     

    In 1861, Bhairavi Brahmani, an orange robed, middle-aged female ascetic appeared at Dakshineshwar. She carried with her the Raghuvir Shila, a stone icon representing Ram and all Vaishnava deities. She was throughly conversant with the texts of Gaudiya Vaishnavism and practiced Tantra. According to the Bhairavi, Ramakrishna was experiencing phenomena that accompany mahabhava—the supreme attitude of loving devotion towards the divine and quoting from the bhakti shastras, she said that other religious figures like Radha and Chaitanya had similar experiences.

     

    Looking upon him as Sri Chaitanya, she read out to him ‘Sri Charitamrita’ and other Vaishnava holy books. When she saw him listening to Vedanta from Totapuri, Brahmini would warn him and say, ‘Baba, don’t listen to Vedanta. It will dilute your bhava and bhakti.’ - Kathamrita

    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

     

     

    Vaishnava Charan, a pundit of the Vaishnava sect, often visited him. It was he who took Thakur to an assembly of Chaitanya’s bhaktas in Calootola. In this assembly, Thakur Sri Ramakrishna experienced the state of God‑consciousness and had stepped up and occupied the seat of Sri Chaitanya. Vaishnava Charan was the president of this Chaitanya assembly.

     

    Vaishnava Charan had told Mathur, ‘This madness is not ordinary, it is the madness of love. He is mad for the Lord.’ Vaishnava Charan and the Brahmini had seen Thakur’s state of mahabhava (divine ecstasy). Like Chaitanya Deva, he sometimes passed through the state of super-consciousness (samadhi . like a piece of wood, unmindful of the world around), sometimes in the state of semi-consciousness and sometimes he would come into the state of outer-consciousness.

    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.


  9. 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.


  10. 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 !!!


  11. 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.


  12. The second quote proves my point.

     

     

    The Purva-Mimamsa school held dharma to be equivalent to following the prescriptions of the Samhitas and their Brahmana commentaries pertaining to the correct performance of Vedic rituals. Seen in this light, Mimamsa is fundamentally ritualist, placing great weight on the performance of Karma or action as spoken by the Vedas. In this sense, it is a counter-movement to the mysticism of Vedanta, disapproving or de-emphasising moksha or salvation. To a certain extent, Purva-Mimamsa is atheist, placing all importance in proper practice as opposed to belief, rejecting a creator God as well as any scriptures on dharma outside the Vedic tradition, yet accepting svarga or heaven awaiting the person who has acted righteously in his or her life. In its rejection of belief in a God, it is related to the nastika Carvaka school.

     

    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.


  13. 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.:)


  14.  

    The Purva-Mimamsa school held dharma to be equivalent to following the prescriptions of the Samhitas and their Brahmana commentaries pertaining to the correct performance of Vedic rituals. Seen in this light, Mimamsa is fundamentally ritualist, placing great weight on the performance of Karma or action as spoken by the Vedas. In this sense, it is a counter-movement to the mysticism of Vedanta, disapproving or de-emphasising moksha or salvation. To a certain extent, Purva-Mimamsa is atheist, placing all importance in proper practice as opposed to belief, rejecting a creator God as well as any scriptures on dharma outside the Vedic tradition, yet accepting svarga or heaven awaiting the person who has acted righteously in his or her life. In its rejection of belief in a God, it is related to the nastika Carvaka school.

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


  15.  

    The Purva Mimamsa has a number of deities. The offerings may be made to them. The practice of Vedic Dharma is not in need of any Supreme Being or God. Vedic religion does not require the assistance of God. The eternal self-existent Veda serves all the purposes of Jaimini and the Purva Mimamsakas. Jaimini does not so much deny God as ignore Him.

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


  16.  

    Not by Vedic Brahmanas. However, there were non-vedic people during that time in India who worshipped anthromorphic Gods like Shiva, Mother Goddess, etc.

     

    Bhakti and idolatory is a big part of Advaita - contrary to what competitors claim. There is hardly any Advaitin who have given up Bhakti.

     

    Cheers

    I did not find any mention of idol worship in the four Vedas. They were only concerned about conducting Yagnas.

     

     

    The class of "Vedic texts" is aggregated around the four canonical Saṃhitās or Vedas proper (turīya), of which three (traya) are related to the performance of yajna (sacrifice) in historical Vedic religion:

     

    1. the Ṛgveda, containing hymns to be recited by the hotṛ or chief priest;

    2. the Yajurveda, containing formulas to be recited by the adhvaryu or officiating priest;

    3. the Sāmaveda, containing formulas to be chanted by the udgātṛ.

     

    The fourth is the Atharvaveda, a collection of spells and incantations, stories, predictions, apotropaic charms and some speculative hymns.

     

     

    The corpus of Vedic Sanskrit texts includes:

     

    * The Samhita (Sanskrit saṃhitā, "collection"), are collections of metric texts ("mantras"). There are four "Vedic" Samhitas: the Rig-Veda, Sama-Veda, Yajur-Veda, and Atharva-Veda, most of which are available in several recensions (śākhā). In some contexts, the term Veda is used to refer to these Samhitas. This is the oldest layer of Vedic texts, apart from the Rigvedic hymns, which were probably essentially complete by 1200 BC, dating to ca. the 12th to 10th centuries BC. The complete corpus of Vedic mantras as collected in Bloomfield's Vedic Concordance (1907) consists of some 89,000 padas (metric feet), of which 72,000 occur in the four Samhitas.

    * The Brahmanas are prose texts that discuss, in technical fashion, the solemn sacrificial rituals as well as comment on their meaning and many connected themes. Each of the Brahmanas is associated with one of the Samhitas or its recensions. The Brahmanas may either form separate texts or can be partly integrated into the text of the Samhitas. They may also include the Aranyakas and Upanishads.

    * The Aranyakas , "wilderness texts" or "forest treaties", were composed by people who meditated in the woods as recluses and are the third part of the Vedas. The texts contain discussions and interpretations of dangerous rituals (to be studied outside the settlement) and various sorts of additional materials. It is frequently read in secondary literature.

    * some of the older Mukhya Upanishads (Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Chandogya, Kaṭha).

     

    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.
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