just venting...opinions welcome

[Guest guest]

Hari OM

 

"as for god accepting repentance, the Gita clearly says that god will acceptance any form of genuine repentance from anyone in any state. but karma is karma and the fruits one reaps, weather they be good or bad, will come back to haunt them"

 

i had read Gita a few times, i couldn't remember seeing the word "repentance" anywhere, please let me know the chapter and verse where Gita clearly says it, so that i can understand what i overlooked.

[Guest guest]

well, repentance is not speciically mentioned in the book. But repentance itself is asking forgiveness of god - basically someone admitting a wrong they have comitted and trying to right the wrong. granted, if hitler did repent before he died, he didnt actively try to right it. but either way -->

 

using this basic definition of repentance, i said that hitler (had he repented) would have been forgiven by God, but still subject to his karma. Sephiroth says no.

 

In the Gita it says, (9.30, 9.31)

 

api cet su-duracaro

bhajate mam ananya-bhak

sadhur eva sa mantavyah

samyag vyavasito hi sah

 

ksipram bhavati dharmatma

sasvac-chantim nigacchati

kaunteya pratijanihi

na me bhaktah pranasyati

 

according to the Bhagavad Gita - As it is site, translated into English by Swami Prabhupada as........

 

'Even if one commits the most abominable actions, if he is engaged in devotional service, he is to be considered saintly because he is properly situated.'

 

'He quickly becomes righteous and attains lasting peace. O son of Kunti, declare it boldly that My devotee never perishes.'

 

 

i guess by just apologizing to God once, us humans would not believe God will forgive someone, but it depends on that person's internal feelings of genuinness, something no one else can measure. So we wouldnt know if someone is really genuine or not. That is why most religions say we shouldnt judge other people. Because we dont actually know the situation and what the person is thinking.

[Guest guest]

Hari OM

 

You can have your own views, what ever there is no problem, but please don't misquote or try for tricky interperation of Gita to justify your views. Because unlike you modern hindus who treat Gita as just another Book, we traditional hindus have special signifinance of what is said in Gita.

 

In fact there is no concept of "repentance" any where in Hinduism, i will not be surprised if the convent where you studied says so contrarily.

 

All this concepts of Repentance , forgiveness by God or God becoming angry/pleased with some body else is pure rubbish of Abharmic origin.

 

Say if i kill you for no reason and ask sincere repentance to God , will He forgive me? and if God forgives somebody still that person should suffer the Karma, then what is the meaning of Forgiveness.

 

God is present everywhere and all times, he does not receive the virtue or sin of anybody. We need God to focus our mind to aim for a higher goal. And similar to a man who has set his mind on olympic gold medal is not disturbed by power cuts in his house, a man who has set his goal on God is not disturbed by trivial worldy problems.

 

And Gita is the main book which talks about Nishkama karma , which is way beyond heaven or Paradise, which asks you to break completely away from the attachement to your Karma, which will bring never-ending bliss to the soul and the pleasures of paradise is insignificant to it.

 

Now if you ask repentance, it means you are still attached to Karma which is completely contradicatory to the soul of Gita.

 

So what ever you want to say say it as your view don't quote Gita unless it is plain and straight forwardly stated, you are not a scholar enough to dig into deeper meanings of Gita or interpert it differently.

[Sephiroth]

well, repentance is not speciically mentioned in the book.

 

Yes, because it is NOT practise of Hindus to seek forgiveness from God when they abuse others. It is practise of Christians and Muslims.

 

'Even if one commits the most abominable actions, if he is engaged in devotional service, he is to be considered saintly because he is properly situated.'

 

Note the word - IF here.

 

If Hitler repented, which facts says he did NOT, then maybe others can forgive him. He did not repent - he took his own life. Therefore, Hitler is in hell (by Hindusm and by Jewish traditions). The rest is no need to be bothered.

 

i guess by just apologizing to God once, us humans would not believe God will forgive someone, but it depends on that person's internal feelings of genuinness, something no one else can measure. So we wouldnt know if someone is really genuine or not. That is why most religions say we shouldnt judge other people. Because we dont actually know the situation and what the person is thinking.

 

No, that is foolish concept.

 

People say you should not judge others because you too can make mistake. If you say you shouldn't judge others because you don't know what others thinking, it means you know what you are thinking and why you do such things as you do and its consequence. That is false and your own ego.

[Sephiroth]

i had read Gita a few times, i couldn't remember seeing the word "repentance" anywhere, please let me know the chapter and verse where Gita clearly says it, so that i can understand what i overlooked.

 

That is his misinterpretations. As far as I know, there is no repenting in Hindusm (or Buddhism for that matter). Karma is what you do and its consequences. You WILL face it in this life or next but the effects can only be reduces to a significant level by devotion to God.

 

Therefore, those who have sinned a lot in the pervious life (like myself) have to do A LOT of goodness in the next in order to redeem him/herself in eyes of God.

 

Repenting is Christian and Muslim's concept alone where a person runs away from his own sins by fooling himself in believing that they are "saved" - a sort of Placebo Effect.

[Guest guest]

Hari OM

 

Yes you are correct, they will not answer when they don't have a convicing reply. But he is much better to keep silent rather than indulging in personal assault.

 

i don't find fault with them, they are probably some christian-convent educated, continuously filled with propaganda emanating from the so-called elite tv, paper , films , etc., as mentioned by Alvin Toffler all these are pre-programmed to create an impact on the minds of the reader.

 

So they had already a solid opinion formed about Hinduism, India, Gita, etc., and now not ready to open their mind for fresh inquiry, if some proofs comes against their opinion they become so violent that they try to disproove with some utter lies or rubbish or try to downgrade the person who is providing with the proof.

 

Now they are neither scientific minded ,like Rutherford who questioned his own atomic model, when just 1% of spectrometer result didn't match his model (the current day scientist would have just blasted the spectrometer company instead) , nor they are religious minded since they lack faith and devotion.

 

Now they are slowly, surely and unknown to them are shifting towards the absurdities of Abhramic religions, which is mainly concerned with "Others" -- how to deal with Others and has so many other illogical things.

 

They find the most natural and logical teachings of Gita - "You are friend and you are your enemy, raise yourself by your own effort and don't degrade yourself" as something rubbish.

 

This is the typical example of Tamo Guna stated in Gita, when people see everything upside down including Dharma and Adharma.

[Guest guest]

but i was busy with school and work......

 

As for the quopte from the Gita, it wasnt my "tricky interpretation", rather my understanding of the verse and my understanding of repentance.

 

In the end, after much contemplation, i cede to you. I, nor anyone else, know what Hitler was thinking before he killed himself, but if his life is any indication, i doubt he was worshipping God. But to be absolutely without a shadow of a doubt sure of this is unimaginable and inconceivable. Anyway, its unimportant.

 

As for the verse in the Gita having to do with repentance, comes with my understanding of repentance. to me, repentance is not merely stating to God "im sorry, i have changed' but acually being sorry, feeling sorry, having genuine throughts of change, and truly seeking god internally or externally to better oneself. In this situation, this is what the Gita talks about. This is why it is said that the worst of sinners can be saved by devoting themselves to God. This is true repentance. Going into a confession booth, confessiing your sins to someone, saying your sorry and then go about as if nothing happened is NOT really repentance. Yet many people do the "act" of repentance in order to be accepted as a repenting soul by society. But God has the infinite knowledge neccessary for right discrimination. No one can fool God.

 

As for forgiveness of God, i agree. God has no emotions. So what is to forgive? Forgiveness is something that is seeked by the person asking for forgiveness. In this sense, people say God has 'forgiven' the sinner because the sinner wants to release tension, and being forgien is tension releasing for anyone. Do Hindus not do this? Do Hindus not say sorry to God? Do they not seek his mercy in terms of the karma that will come back around?

 

But i do agree, i dont believe God experiences emotions. Read some of my other posts elsewhere and you will see that this is waht i believe. Emotions can only be identified in the sense of lack of emotion. Love is only as real as the fact that object being loved can be lost to the lover. This can never be the case with God. He can never lose us or anything else. So what is love to God. What is love to someone that never will lose it, never be without it, always have it command, whenever He wants it? Then again, when would he 'want' it? Why would someone want something that someone always has?

 

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People say you should not judge others because you too can make mistake. If you say you shouldn't judge others because you don't know what others thinking, it means you know what you are thinking and why you do such things as you do and its consequence. That is false and your own ego.

-------------------------

 

Please elaborate on this paragraph. I dont understand what you are saying. It is true that one shouldnt judge others because one never has all the information neccessary to truly understand the situation that others are going through and the reasons for one making the decicions and reacting the way they did. This is why they say this. Any judgements made are made only from your PERCEPTION of what is happening, rather than an absolute understanding of exactly all the factors involved in the situation.

 

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don't find fault with them, they are probably some christian-convent educated, continuously filled with propaganda emanating from the so-called elite tv, paper , films , etc., as mentioned by Alvin Toffler all these are pre-programmed to create an impact on the minds of the reader.

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I am definatley not a Christian convent educated person. I learn from constantly reading throughout my life. I have been interested in reading history and science since elementary school and recently (within the past 5 years or so) into philosophy and religion and am basing my understanding of the Gita on my life experiences and the knowledge i have built up in that time.

 

The reason for my statement, is that if one believes in a person God as many Hindus do believe, then that personal God is who one turns to for forgiveness when one is ashamed or sorry for their actions. Thats human nature.

 

I do not have a solid understanding of Hindusim, and i know everyone in this forum doesnt have a completely solid understanding. I doubt if many do, or any at all. I am merely a 23 year old student of life trying to incorporate understandings of the universe and experiences from my life given to me by God and coalesce all into a full understanding. I doubt I will ever get a full understanding, but the seeking is what i am after. I have no problem ceding defeat to someone, but only when they have defated me.

 

When one continuously just talks in circles of how you said this and i said this so i am wrong becasuse its stupid, blah, blah, balh...without any solid intelectual proofs, theres nothing to cede defeat to. But as i am saying now, after thinking about it, i udnerstood that my statements earlier were actually going against my own belief in what God is, terefore i was wrong.

[Sephiroth]

So they had already a solid opinion formed about Hinduism, India, Gita, etc., and now not ready to open their mind for fresh inquiry, if some proofs comes against their opinion they become so violent that they try to disproove with some utter lies or rubbish or try to downgrade the person who is providing with the proof.

 

If they cannot open their mind, then perhaps, they shouldn't open their mouth either.

 

After all, reasons for discuss is to check each others' view. If someone do not want his views to be checked, then he should be so bold to check other people's views and judge it to be correct or not.

 

Now they are slowly, surely and unknown to them are shifting towards the absurdities of Abhramic religions, which is mainly concerned with "Others" -- how to deal with Others and has so many other illogical things.

 

It's called Faith-based Ego. "My God is holier than yours", "My religion more perfect than yours" and "I'm going to heaven and you are not" attitude.

 

Last I check, Lord Vishnu kicked out beings from Vaikunthan who are Egoistic and Sri Krishna didn't entertain devotees who are arrogant and egoistic either.

[Guest guest]

{even the original islamic invasion of india is seen by many historians, especially economic historians, as based solely in the Middle eastern desire to be part of the heavily flourishing India/Rome trade.}

 

This sound like pure nonsense. Historians believe this do they? Sounds more like those nutty Nehruvian Marxist Historians rather than any Historian of any real stature. Even if it was true for economic reasons, it is not further from the fact that the muslims did see India as a land of infidels that needed to be either converted or killed and that's exactly what they did. Appologists like you fool nobody but yourselves! The very fact that you feel the need to play down historical muslim attrocities against Hindus shows very well.

 

If you want to ignore the Hindu attrocities then look at other religions like the Zorastians who were killed, converted or driven out of Persia to settle in India. You think Islam didn't try to wipe out their religion? They were non-muslims after all and not part of the Abrahamic tradition.

 

Or you can look at the Sikhs who lost the life of Guru Teg Bahadur to muslims who beheaded him because he defended Kashmiri Hindus and refused to convert to Islam. And also Guru Gobind Singh's four sons were murdered by muslims because they refused to convert. Now do think this is to do with economics or hatred of another religion?

[Guest guest]

while what you say is true in those examples, it is also true that kings and rulers make decicions, based moslty on economic wealth for themselves or their kingdom. While the Muslims did kill many Zoroastrians and drove the rest into India and also killed many Hindus/Buddhists and sikhs in their conquest of India, the reasons behind the early raids of Muhammed Gazni and Ghori (both of which were fused into the popular mentality as a desire to destroy the infidels) were more about the potential wealth (and there was alot) that could have come under the control of the Islamic world.

 

I do not intend to downplay history, because no matter what the reason was behind it, the end result is millions of hindus/buddhists/sikhs/zoroastrians and many other minor religions that were decimated. It is a very sad fact and should be acknowledged as correct history by both the victims and the agressors (muslims), but that is a different topic.

 

As it was, historically India has been a VERY rich country. It is only releatively recent that India has been a third world poor country. It was the Birtish that came in and made India poor beyond belief. Even during the Mughal time period, India's economy flourished because of the huge goods and resourced India had and traded.

 

During Roman times, Rome's #1 trading partner was the Malabar coast. India has been the desire of European trade for roughly 2000 years. The land trade between the two was facilitated through the Middle East, and when Rome went throuhg the sea route from Ethiopia, this hurt the Middle East in revenue that could have potentially come over their land.

 

Following this, a strong Christian identity in Europe and similar causes to the Christian and Islamic religions, helped factor into a strong Muslim identity. This Muslim identity was in search of power and resources to back their muslim identity as a strong response to the powerfully backed Roman Catholic Church.

 

Now i am not saying that it was entirely ecnomic reasons that led to the invasions. But the early ones were more about taking their wealth while also killing the infidel at the same time. The economic supply and opportunity mixed with the enourmnous wealth of India must surely have factored into a monarch's decision to invade a country, after which the public opinion needs to be manipulated so as to show support. This is how government has worked almost always throughout history.

 

Propaganda is a real thing that dates back as far as Old Kingdom Egypt if not further. The propaganda of the Muslim rulers to make religion and religious difference the main stream of thought that feeds the war against the foreignor for economic reasons is not something so far fatched. It still goes on today - look at the US in Iraq.