Mystical experiences, Paraatman, talking with God, and Imagination...

[Bhakta Shakta]

How do I differentiate a so-called mystical-experience, the voice from inside (Paraatman), or talking with God from my imagination.

Especially when I lack the saucam (purity), specifically mental-purity.

 

I am open to a transcendental-substance's existence, but I am not sure to ascertain whether it is actually the experience of a transcendental-substance or the experience of my imagination!

[shvu]

 

Yeah...terrific question !

 

Cheers

[Bhakta Shakta]

We all know that this world is Krishna in the disguise of maya, but what about maya in the disguise of Krishna?

[Dasha]

Dear Bhakta Shakta Prabhu

 

These are in fact good questions and as far as I know, the best way to differenciate real Bhava from sentimentality is to put it in the fire of difficulties.

 

When everything is allright and life is going smoothly, your sadhana is regular, every day you have nice food to fillup your belly, you are having good association of devotees, nice dharsana of Their Lordship etc..., it is quite easy to feel "extatics symptoms" of love of God.

 

But as soon as the slightest difficulty will come (when God starts to "test" your devotion) you will quikly understand what is "sentimentality" and what is "transcendental-substance".

 

Krsna (God) knows better than us our sincerity. Certainly in the begining of our spiritual life there are sentimental feelings. But we can be sure that it cannot last for ever to be superficial, so there must come some test. At that point we will have the tendency to loose the taste for practicing spiritual activities. If we are sincere we will still go on practicing in spite of the difficulties, then we will make a step in our elevation toward God, then other tests will come, more and more subtle as we advance.

 

This is the way by which we will advance step after step, test after test, to the goal of pure bhakti.

 

On the ladder of bhakti, you will see people falling from every degrees, according to how much sincerity they had.

Some will fall down at the first difficulty, and other will do after having go through many tests.

 

The difference is that the higher you are, the more you will harm yourself by falling down.

 

Hare Krsna

 

 

[Bhakta Shakta]

What you say of Bhakti-yoga is certainly true. Obstacles to test ones sincerety and honesty will be put up by Krishna to test ones devotion. As one passes these tests one gets a higher mark with him, or a higher qualification of reciprocation, until at last we finally have darshan.

 

Previously posted by Dasha:

"But as soon as the slightest difficulty will come (when God starts to "test" your devotion) you will quikly understand what is "sentimentality" and what is "transcendental-substance"."

 

But i'm more intersted in how to authenticate a mystical experience. When God gives his 'tests', my devotion to him will certainly be tested, but failing these 'tests' doesn't nullify my previous so-called transcendental experiences.

 

Sometimes I think I'm really talking with God and sometimes I know that it is my false-ego or mundane mind or something!, that completely concocted it. I really don't know sometimes. A lot of people think they are talking with God, and most would classify them insane, and I think they are probably right, not in doing so, but that they are actually right in the classification!

[shvu]

Hi Bhakta Shakta,

 

Well said.

 

Whatever visions we have are our own creations. People like to think that they have found something unique and wonderful and get greatly excited. While all the time, it is their own mind playing tricks.

 

A nice example is that the devotee will only see forms that he knows. A christian who has never seen a picture of Krishna or read a description of Krishna, can never have a vision of Krishna. Simply because it is not part of his memory.

 

Cheers

[animesh]

An example of information in subconscious coming to conscious?

[shvu]

 

Another example:

 

When a dog chews on a dry bone, it's gums start bleeding. The dog thinks that the blood is from the bone and chews harder, while all the time it is tasting it's own blood.

 

Cheers

[shvu]

 

Hi Animesh,

 

There is only one conscious and memory. Without something called memory, there would be no such thing as consciousness or even a feeling of existence. Coma would be the word.

 

Cheers

[animesh]

Something similar:

In one website(neardeath.com), most of people who had near-death experience saw Jesus Christ. I remember having read a book that described near-death experiences of hindus. Most of them had seen lots of hindu gods with cloths and jewelleries as we have seen in pictures.

[Gauracandra]

"In one website(neardeath.com), most of people who had near-death experience saw Jesus Christ. I remember having read a book that described near-death experiences of hindus. Most of them had seen lots of hindu gods with cloths and jewelleries as we have seen in pictures."

 

Krsna states in the Bhagavad Gita that that which one worships one will obtain. If one worships the ancestors, then at the time of death one will go the the ancestors. If one worships the demigods, then one will attain the abode of the demigods. And if one worships Krsna, one will attain Him. It is not that all paths lead to the same result. So Christians worship Christ and so at the time of death see Christ etc....Consider the universal form of the Lord that Arjuna saw. Within it he saw all the gods, planets etc.... This is one of the great strengths of Vedantic philosophy - it doesn't feel the need to dismiss other culture's mystical experiences.

 

Gauracandra

[ggohil]

Hare Krsna:

 

Dear Shvu

 

“Whatever visions we have are our own creations. People like to think that they have found something unique and wonderful and get greatly excited. While all the time, it is their own mind playing tricks.”

 

Can you prove this statement.

[shvu]

 

Hi Ggohil,

 

Of course, I cannot prove that statement. If that could be proved then all the religious guys would have gone out of business long ago. They are in existence today only because none of their claims can be subject to logic or proof. And just like how their statements cannot be proved, this statement cannot be too. It could be totally wrong [just like theirs could be].

 

But I must say that it appears to be impossible to have a vision of something that is not part of our memory. And I don't know of any case, where some devotee of x got a vision of y whom he never knew before. In every case, the person saw what he wanted to see or atleast was part of his memory. (Which supports the above statement)

 

---

However, here is my question. If a person right from the beginning is never taught or showed any love or compassion, does this mean, the same person will never feel love or compassion.

---

 

Yes, you didn't get what I was saying. Without memory constantly operating, there is no way of even knowing that we are existing. Without memory, one wouldn't be able to recognize anything he sees. That is what I meant.

 

Do love and compassion exist only in people who have been taught about them?

 

I don't know. It is a hypothetical situation. Unless we see how a person who has never been taught any virtues behaves, we cannot know.

 

Cheers

 

 

[ggohil]

Jai Sri Krsna:

 

Dear Shvu:

 

“Of course, I cannot prove that statement.....”

 

Good, for a moment I thought your statement was a foregone conclusion for all mankind.

 

“I don't know. It is a hypothetical situation. Unless we see how a person who has never been taught any virtues behaves, we cannot know. ”

 

So perhaps their still may be a possibility that, factors like love, feelings, compassion may not necessarily be product of memory.

 

[ggohil]

Jai Sri Krsna

 

“There is only one conscious and memory. Without something called memory, there would be

no such thing as consciousness or even a feeling of existence. Coma would be the word.”

 

Perhaps I am misunderstanding above statement.

 

However, here is my question. If a person right from the beginning is never taught or showed

any love or compassion, does this mean, the same person will never feel love or compassion.

 

 

[Dasha]

Dear Prabhus,

 

I do not know what is surprising in the fact that a Christian will never see Krsna if he as a spiritual vision.

 

shvu said:

-----

A nice example is that the devotee will only see forms that he knows. A christian who has never seen a picture of Krishna or read a description of Krishna, can never have a vision of Krishna. Simply because it is not part of his memory.

-----

 

May be it is not a part of his memory but may be it is just that Krsna as so many different aspect that He do not have to present under this particular form to a christian. This spiritualist is not ready to see God under this aspect in this lifetime.

 

If you imagine god as an old white-beared man, their no need for Him to present as a Cowerd Boy. It does not fit to the situation.

 

From Bhata Shata:

 

-----

But i'm more intersted in how to authenticate a mystical experience. When God gives his 'tests', my devotion to him will certainly be tested, but failing these 'tests' doesn't nullify my previous so-called transcendental experiences.

-----

 

First of all nothing can nullify whatever advancement as been done previousely. We may delay it, but never nullify it.

 

About "so-called transcendental experiences", don't be worry, when you will have a real transcendental experience you will have no doubt on the experiment.

 

It may also happened that from time to time, in His great mercy, in order to help us, Krsna raise a little corner of the curtain of maya that blinds us. We will feel a generally breif but very intense feeling that will consolidate us that we are on the good path, but we still have a lot to do to maintain the experience.

 

As far as speaking to God is concerne, I do not see what may be wrong with that.

 

Previously I had an old man as neighbour. He was a very simple person, but one day he told me just like that that he would never do anything without having discuss it with God.

All day long he was speaking with God in his heart. And there was no reason to consider him as a fool (he was not claiming it to everybody). He knew practically nothing from any philosophy, but he knew that God was in his heart and he used to speak to him as if he was an old confident.

I do not feel that there may be any harm with that.

 

Cheers.

[Bhakta Shakta]

"Religion without philosophy is sentiment. Philosophy without religion is dry speculation."

 

And i found this:

Visvanatha Cakravartin gave an interesting characterization of the way this offense works in his commentary on the Bhagavata Purana 6.2.9-10.

He says: "Some people are always engaging their senses in the sense objects like cows and asses and don't know, even in their dreams, who is God, what is devotion, who is the guru.' Such inoffensive persons are saved even without a guru by repeating the holy name in the manner of semblance of holy name' (namabhasa) like Ajamila and others.

 

p.s.

Learn to spell DosaJi.

[animesh]

__________

If a person right from the beginning is never taught or showed any love or compassion, does this mean, the same person will never feel love or compassion.

__________

 

Let me ask another question:

 

If a person right from the beginning is never taught or showed any hatred or cruelty, does this mean, the same person will never feel hatred or cruelty?

 

[shvu]

Hi Bhakta Shakta,

 

May I point out that when one is doing Nama Bhasha, one is still engaged in one's senses?

 

Every activity that one does is sensual, whatever it be. You can know that you are doing something only thru one of your sense organs.

 

Cheers

[ggohil]

Jai Sri Krsna:

 

“If a person right from the beginning is never taught or showed any love or compassion, does this

mean, the same person will never feel love or compassion.

__________

Let me ask another question:

If a person right from the beginning is never taught or showed any hatred or cruelty, does this

mean, the same person will never feel hatred or cruelty?”

In either case, can one be absolutely sure that Cruelty or Compassion is only a product of his or

her memory.

 

[shvu]

 

Irrespective of whether it was taught or ot, it is definitely from memory. Unless your memory tells you that someone else is in pain, how will compassion arise? The same with hatred too.

[ggohil]

Hari Hari

 

I am sorry for diverting away from the main topic.

Dear Shvu:

 

I understand what you are saying.

Consider this, when one sees something breathtaking the very first time and cherishes it or when one falls in love the first time. How would one attribute these

feelings, felt the first, to memory.

[Dasha]

Dear shvu,

 

-----

Unless your memory tells you that someone else is in pain, how will compassion arise?

-----

 

What a surprising assertion !!!!!!!!!!

 

Sorry but there has been many persons which have been taught compassion, but they have never been able to feel any, and some of them became big demons.

 

The same is also true for the opposite: take the exemple of Pralada Maharaja, his demoniac father never taught him any virtuous feeling, but he was in love with God from his very childhood.

 

Now take the example of Gautama Buddha: Never did he saw any miserable things during his all childhood, but when he saw poverty or diseased persons for the first time, he immediately understand that there was something wrong with it. Was it coming from his memory?

 

Cheers.

 

 

[shvu]

Hi Dasha,

 

You yourself came up with a good example. Gautama Buddha when he first saw a man in pain, did not know why this person seemed different. His charioter had to explain things to him. Also I have already told before that I am not stating that all virtues have to be taught. I don't know that.

 

Of course, we don't follow everything that we are taught. It depends on several factors and it is natural that there will be incompassionate and indifferent people. It takes all kinds of people to make up the world.

 

Cheers

 

[shvu]

Hi Ggohil,

 

It simply means that I don't know

 

Compassion comes out of comparison.

 

As far as I know no one has conducted an experiment to raise a huamn being in solitude without exposing him to anyone else, and then studying his behavior to see if he begins comparing things.

 

Cheers