BombayBoy
Journeyman
Yes. It's just that our body hair is softer and smaller (than say monkeys) unless someone's like the Jhakaas - Anil Kapoor
Debates about the Economy, Politics, Religion, and everything under the sun
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Yes. It's just that our body hair is softer and smaller (than say monkeys) unless someone's like the Jhakaas - Anil Kapoor
The sun rises in the East? Yes, a fact in the old world. However, today we know that the sun actually doesn't "rise" it's the spot on earth you're standing at that turns to face the sun, and sunrise is different for everyone. In the circles it rises and sets once in 6 months. Science and exploration taught us that. No one "knows" anything about their body, they "believe". how much weight can you lift right now this very instant? Exact, to the nearest kilo? no one knows these things, which is why we lift some, if it's too heavy we take off some, if it's liftable we try and lift more. Weightlifters go through years of extensive training and keep pushing. There is no absolute, there is no knowing, there is only exploring.
As you stated, "higher" implies better, and the way you speak of it implies better. Maybe not best, but it sure sounds like you feel that people who do not follow the vedas, or think of the mind and consciousness differently are illiterate or ignorant.
However the world was here before you came along, and will be here after you depart it. It was here before all humans came along, and will be here after they depart it. Their perception of it does not govern it. This is what the problem is with humanity, this feeling of being special. It's what all religions are based on, you're not ordinary and pointless, you are special... wow, feels good, so it must be right. Human beings are the most narcissistic of creatures around, and want desperately to find a higher purpose and meaning. Is it possible that there exists a consciousness that is on a higher plane or maybe in a different dimension, sure, it’s also possible that God is a green goblin with one testicle and breasts, and is actually a little monster baby and entire universes are just motes in his / her snow globe that is shaken about now and then. And, it’s also equally possible that human beings give themselves too much importance and religion and higher purposes are just tricks the mind plays to prevent people from going nuts and killing themselves. Thus the “faith”. And yes, you have it too.
I prefer to classify myself as an atheist, and many atheists I meet are similar. I think you have a narrow view of atheism, and those who only accept what can be proven or measured or seen.
The entire universe isn’t full of consciousness. It may be, it may not be, there is no proof of consciousness other than on Earth for the moment. Anything said more than that is based on faith, and nothing more. Sure you may “believe” that it is so, but sorry, it isn’t fact, just your faith. It’s not even an improper-yet-accepted-fact like the “sun rising in the east”.
The concept of infinity has always existed to all thinking beings. To a man standing on a sea shore, the horizon is an infinite distance. Mathematically you can analyse infinity in a few ways, for example anything divided by infinity = 0. Or anything divided by zero is infinity. Actually not exactly, but for the sake of simplicity an acceptable compromise.
Also, nothing is infinite, which is the beauty of the world around us. It may take “forever” to reach the edges of the galaxy travelling at the speed of a rocket-boosted engine today, but that forever is a number. It can be calculated, if we ever went there. Infinity simply means too long to bother about researching and calculating anymore in everyday life, and undefined/error in mathematics.
As for time, it’s very real. Many people will complain about the time it takes to read these posts.
Without time there would be stasis, and nothing at all. The very reason anything exists is time, so is time God? There is no higher plane of consciousness needed to understand time. It is then and now and what we assume/hope will be. Someone broke it into seconds and hours and days so we could keep track and have a common reference frame, so we can make appointments or say “two days ago the bad men came and slaughtered our cattle”, or whatever. Today we have refined the art of telling time, where before it was “many moons ago” or maybe in ancient years their way of saying many moons was to say what now translates to a century or a thousand years. We don’t know. It’s common for people to exaggerate. Before infinity, it was “thousands of years”. In fact the yugas people follow themselves are measures of time. And even Bhrama has limited time and dies after a specified time (only to be born again – resurrection is the hook for people in this particular religion).
The problem I have with most ancient texts is that the translator sees what he wants to see.
For example in the Yugas, what was first 4800 years then became 4800 divine years when things didn’t match up. Extensions of time in such a manner seem a little convenient to me, even though I am all for updating science and realising that what we know is only what we know today. However, facts that are provable are just my preferred way of operating.
It’s like the people who call Nostradamus a seer. If anything he was probably inspired by ancient texts to predict events in this way. The use of tongues to veil apparent meanings is still applied by scamsters when you go for tarot card readings, or those who read tea leaves. No one will tell you “You will die tomorrow” because that’s clear and concise. Instead it will be veiled in the form of “Your death will be peaceful and will coincide with the meetings in the heavens of <random name> and <another random name>, but only when the moon is in the ascent…” you get the idea. This is an age old magician’s trick. Distract and dazzle. All religions do this. You will find multiple sites online that will tell you how the Bible is always right, even today, and uses verses to prove even the modern era, and how it’s a problem of our “understanding” of the texts. You will find the same for the Quran, for example, explaining everything that science has found out today. I have no doubt that the “Indians” of that era were more scientific in their observations, and thus were obviously more accurate. I have no problems with many of the sayings, including those which talk about greed, and try and better our lives.
What we “thought” is perhaps the wrong way to put it. What we “knew for sure” until the discovery of this city is better. There are squabbles over dating of course but certainly 9,500 years, and yes I’ve seen a history channel documentary that wanted to hype it and said 32000 years, and also claimed Krishna was an alien.
Here’s more proof of civilised life older than we previously discovered.
Gobekli Tepe: The World
What is civilised life however? There are cave paintings we know of as old as 40,000 years ago. Humanoid remains have been found all over the globe and carbon date between 7 million years and 2 million years ago. Is it the building of cities that defines civilisation? Is it grouping together and living together? Life’s existed for millions of years on Earth, and the fossils we found prove that. We cannot prove exactly when it started, but the estimates will do for now.
Sorry, but again this is where we diverge. You may call it “knowing” for as long as you want, but there is no physical proof of this. It is “belief”. Sure, we believe that city to be 12000 years old, but carbon dating of the oldest artifacts found will date it at around 9500. Small leaps of faith are possible, sure, like believing that the city found was built and developed for almost 3000 years before it perished – very, very believable. Also believable that there were a bunch of nomads living there 9500 years ago, and say, 2000 years later that developed into a city. But we’d rather “believe” that the city was in fact older, and sure, nothing wrong with that. The truth will lie somewhere close to what the facts can prove anyway.
However, believing that there were “perfect beings” in a time when all fossils and physical proof shows only cave men, or dinosaurs, depending on whether you go with the yuga definition of “years” or “divine years”. Something tells me that there would be some physical evidence of this. There is none. Apparently perfect beings didn’t need shelter from the weather, or the ice age, or anything. Now of course perhaps the weather was perfect, much like the beings, however even that is proven wrong when we look at rock formations, permafrost going back hundreds of thousands of years. Much like counting the rings on the trees and looking at the way in which those rings are formed we can tell what the weather was, the same applies to rock, ice, etc.
Perhaps the more probably explanation is that the ancients themselves after exploring and finding no evidence of life before this, despite knowing that for as long as they could recall, life had existed, decided that the earlier beings must have been perfect in every way, not needing to eat, build cities, etc. Knowing human psychology, looking at our villages and the things they concoct as beliefs, this is perfectly plausible. Take a bunch of children from today, put them in complete isolation away from all technology and other humans, and they will grow up with belief systems of their own. Just as many nomadic tribes and the tribes living in protected parts of Andaman also have beliefs that may or may not match with science and / or any other religion. Sure it’s common for people to realise that when you throw something up, it always comes down. Make a law for that, or call it god’s magnet, or gravity. Yet only modern science can tell you the gravity on the moon, for instance.
Perfectly fine for a “belief”, no proof exists of this though. Show me one sadhu or human, not in folklore, but in reality, who lived to be 200. All of this perfection must account for something? There are people doing yoga all their lives, vegetarians, praying every day, reading vedas, never hurt a fly, and they live to be what? 110 max? And I agree with cyclic nature, and all that is created will one day be destroyed. That’s just common sense, isn’t it? Nothing lasts forever, moments are but fleeting, what is born must die… there are so many quotes just like that. We know the sun will burn out one day too, and the universe will end a trillion trillion years from now (or tomorrow!). If a caveman who lost his home and family in an earthquake drew “life is a cycle” in pictures, expressing his grief over the loss of his family, but also expressing hope that he would have a new one, how would he do it? How would he show a cycle. He’d draw a rising sun and a setting one, and show death of his family, trying to associate the cycle of night and day. 40,000 years later, would we know what he meant? We can date it sure, but there will be people who will draw conclusions that the cavemen knew! THEY KNEW!!! We’d scream from the rooftops, that even the sun would die one day. What smart people they were! This is the problem with interpretations of ancient languages. 2 + 2 = 4 is universal, but making everything be born from four types of cosmic sounds? Now that string theory is being debated, of course there will be people who will say, hey in ancient Sanskrit, sound wasn’t meant to be “sound” it means just cosmic vibrations, and the playing of the strings of the gods that created the universe. See how that works? Hindsight is 20-20, but for me, sitting and listening to a physicist, using fact and details seems to make sense. Truly intelligent people communicate well, and hide nothing behind double speak. They give examples of how things work, and how that translates to something more complex. Language is the first thing to change when new discoveries are made. The difference between sound and cosmic vibrations would be apparent – we don’t call everything atoms or molecules when we discovered electrons and protons. We didn’t say “smaller atoms” or just call everything small particles. You name something you discover, or even think of. Sci-fi writers called their ideas something. Even if it was the combination of words. Thus you get solar sails, dark matter, anti-matter. We don’t say use the word matter to describe both dark matter and normal matter, we distinguish.
However with all religious texts, that differentiation is done by the reader, sometimes thousands of years later – saying oh he didn’t mean this, he meant that. Sorry, but if the ancients were that brilliant, to figure out all that the rest of humanity has taken thousands of more years to, then they would have said so, and not allowed you to update your belief to include string theory when it came along. What if it had been called satan’s theory, then what would happen to the “cosmic sounds”?
I agree, everything you talk about is a concept. No harm in that. Even modern science has concepts and theories that people arrive at with mathematical and physical hints, and then set their lives aside to try and prove. Often failing, but sometimes succeeding. As a musician myself I agree, spontaneity is important, it encourages creativity. However it’s also done with rules – so many bars, so many notes, etc. some notes together sound wrong, and that’s why you have chords, some progressions grate your ears, and thus you have scales. There’s still a science to it, and formal training is sought, but still creativity and changing or challenging old theories is encouraged. In the end it’s what do the the people who listen to the music like? Again subjective, because what I like you may love or hate. However, again, even an absolutely untrained musician, just a regular listener of even Indian classical can listen in to me playing guitar and almost always correctly comment – “You made a mistake there right?” Some things just don’t fit. However, playing well requires concentration. The more skillfull the piece being played, the more concentration is required. The brain is more focussed on the finger movements and the picking, and less likely to notice a tomato being hurled at him from the crowd. This is exactly what I mean by not understanding meditation. People say it’s not focus, yet in order to draw your focus away from your surroundings, you need to focus elsewhere, be lost in something, in thought, in introspection. You can sit and just focus on your breathing, for example, but that’s just extreme focus, and biology explains away why you lose sense of everything else. In dreams, you always see faces you have seen somewhere before, no human “creates” a face in a dream. That is not losing oneself in an ocean, it sounds more like some electrical leakage in a PC causing random data of your PC to display on a screen.
In order to understand the vedas, don’t I have to believe that Brahma created everything, Vishnu will destroy it all, etc? Isn’t everything put in context with those beliefs? I honestly don’t know because everything I have read thus far says so (which is I am SURE a miniscule fraction of what you have read on the subject). I am the first to claim ignorance of this because it turns me off when the very first words or sentences ask me to make a leap of faith and just “believe” with no facts being provided. Good writing for me lays out facts first, then if necessary asks you to take a leap of faith, all the while explaining why that leap of faith may and may not be right. I like to have all my bases covered. Again I’m not merely a techno junky, so don’t pounce on the example that follows – would you trust a review for the iPhone that said, trust me, it sucks (or trust me, it rocks). Would you automatically assume that since Digit’s an old brand in technology, we know what we’re saying? After you got your hands on the iPhone, would you then automatically start assuming we meant that the camera is bad (or that the battery life is good), etc., as reasons why it sucks (or rocks). Would you automatically trust us implicitly, saying we must have been scientific about our conclusions, because look, here are 30 other phone reviews we got right as well? I hope you get the point I am making, but I can always bring more examples into this.
Again, I haven’t read enough or either – actually I did read the Quran and ignored all of the anti-religion and war passages by understanding that this was written in a time when tribes were fighting for survival, and when believers of other religions were violent. In context, it was a survival strategy. Those who “believe” those verses even today, sadly are the hardliners causing all the trouble across the globe. For example, I find that banning pork – at a time when a lot of people died from eating bad meat was more medicinal than others. Banning alcohol, also was an example of medical reasons, and definitely one the single most unpopular parts of the religion when it began. I am actually shocked it was able to catch on like wildfire with that bit in it. Then there is the bathing to keep clean often, which in ancient times was a terrible problem. In fact life expectancy is doubled at least for people with good hygiene. All religions promote this even today of course, but looking about this country I wonder what happened to following these hygiene clauses!
Entropy, what’s wrong with it? Matter converts into energy and back again all the time in everyday life. Understanding it is not hard at all, not even thousands of years ago. You eat, you get strength. You don’t you faint. You get hungry you get desperate, but also weaker, eventually you die. Small plants don’t grow in shaded areas, thus the sun is needed – it is needed to create matter, and importantly the fruit I eat. Planting seeds in my cave fails, but in a field with sunlight they prosper. Same with water, stupid plants…. The sun is strange – burns my face if I stand in it for too long, yet when it goes away it’s too cold and dark. In my rock the sun gives light, indirectly, and without the heat of direct sunlight. It is far away, but still burns silently, how strange. The moonlight never burns, no matter how much we bask in it. The fire I build burns also, but makes smoke and noise as well. The sun doesn’t. Thus it proves the sun is far away, and when I see through the trees I can see the sun’s “rays” which must be magical carriers of warmth and light. I had this drink once, Energee, it made me feel active and strong, let’s call it Energy instead (at least their stupid lawyers will not be able to sue me then). I tend to attempt humour sometimes to break the monotony (and fail?), but I suppose you get the drift. That doesn’t equate to E=MC^2. Sure the cavemen could have had a concept of “energy” as did the ancients obviously, but there are limits. They didn’t know about the atomic bomb or matter energy coefficients, they merely stated what they observed and thought of and then extrapolated one view into another. The world was flat, then it changed and became spherical when combined knowledge (from China some say) explained the motion of the stars and the day and night. The earth was the centre, then the sun was. This centre theory was good, it was easily explainable, just tie a rock to string and whirl it and a circle is born. But you are at the centre. Thus god must be at the centre of everything, because the earth is wondrous, and must be the creation of a god. I can create string, a hut, a club, and I can grow fruit, but to create life and the stars and the sun, wow, that must be a supreme being. Thus the stories start, and everyday experiences build and add to the story.
I have read hundreds of links like that. I see really no difference in the fact that “faith” is required. Many will say that all religions believe that there is only ONE true god, which some people in Hinduism also believe – that all the gods are merely the powers of the all-powerful. Nomenclature, as far as I am concerned – just personal opinion of course. Many also believe that the Christ and Krishna story are the same on so many levels that it has to be the same story, just told by different people, and thus the different religions. The more people try and differentiate, the more similarities are found. Even science has similarities to religions – blind belief by the masses for one, and lack of understanding. However, the difference is that popular, everyday, modern science is based on drawn up laws that you and me can experiment and verify. We have no desire to, of course, but we can. Many of us have done chemistry in school, and seen reactions that would be magic to the average villager.
I will certainly read it when I have time. I am kind of busy as we are expecting a child to be delivered in the next week or so, and thus the on from mobile and random timings of replies – just so the forum guys don’t think I’ve gone crazy with my timings
I will read the excerpts you have posted for sure though. And I will make my comments, ignorant as they may be.
Or it could also mean that both the cow and light help us survive, and thus are sacred. There are still many jumps of faith made in such cases. A greater understanding of something always raises the way in which you look at ancients. You may go to ancient civilisations and see step farming as them understanding gravity, fluid dynamics and more advanced concepts, but maybe they just planted everywhere and found that plantations on natural steps didn’t get washed away. We recreate what works. It happens in villages today as well, where farming techniques that are used in the US are also used here, by illiterates. However practising is not understanding, not always. Even a non-musician can hit a chord by mistake and discover it – without knowing what it is called or why it sounds nice. Even a broken clock is right twice a day…
Smarter people (those with more knowledge) are respected more, and thus also live easier lives. It is thus desirable to gain knowledge. Not rocket science certainly, but very astutely observational.
Or that fire is powerful. It can burn your home or an entire forest and kill everything in its path. It is to be respected, thus it is godlike, Agni, much like the sun. The sun is just another fire, but very far away that comes and goes. Fire allows me to see at night, and is thus also productive when controlled. When asleep, if my feet go too close to the flames it burns me and I wake up suddenly from unconscious to consciousness, thus is can also be related to waking up, or intelligence.
It’s great to be alive? Everyday I live I learn something new, thus it must be my purpose, and since each day is brought forward by dawn, and I already associate light with intelligence, and elders seem to have more than the kids based on their experience, I must be drinking in intelligence on a daily basis. It’s so magical, it must be a god who invented the art of learning.
Collective wisdom? Some things still cannot be explained, and the god of wisdom obviously wants us to learn. Just as there are evil people and good people, people I like and those I hate, there must be good gods and evil ones too. Cannot call them gods, but anti-gods, or satan, or whatever word was used back then. The Coverer? Yet some things are eventually learnt. It may take weeks or months or years or centuries, but my grandfather in all his wisdom couldn’t figure out something I now have, Indra must have won the battle with Vritara today to grant me this knowledge.
I don’t know what the lost herds refer to here, so no comment. Perhaps when I get time to read it I will understand this one better. It just seems out of context on its own, and says nothing really to me at least in English.
I like this small passage a lot. Don’t let people get in the way of learning. Always learn, for it is what the gods want. Learning betters you and your life and the city / village so learning is good. Very admirable, and I wish this was followed more instead of whatever it is that we have now that causes so much hatred against questioning of anything. I suppose the “god(s)” had to be brought into this to make it believable and authoritative for the masses, but also stands on its own regardless of religion or gods.
Meditation? I don’t get this obviously since I haven’t experienced it, but it also seems to point to life after death, which always was a must for any faith to be accepted. Everyone’s afraid of death I suppose, so it makes sense that all faiths offer to keep your soul / mind / consciousness / etc alive for eternity. As an aside, funny how reincarnation theories don’t bring knowledge back with you, or else all these damn idiots running around today must really have been utter oafs in their past lives.
This trend continues in all the quotes. I will prefer to read the site you pointed me to as the best translation, and absorb that rather than what others interpret – as it is the texts are already suffering from too many interpretations and updates over thousands of years.
I agree, but it still requires a lot of “faith”.
I have nothing against ancient sciences. I feel it is irrelevant now only because we have all been experiencing the same age old things they have. We have accepted terminology for things now, equations that explain what they observed, and much smarter people. In many ways the studies of ancient sciences might bring new ways of relooking at sciences of today. So be it. I don’t say kill them off, I say they are irrelevant to the majority of humanity. They are in a language no one understands, they are steeped in the religious voices of the age, and they require a lot of blind faith as well. There are very little facts and all theories, which is good as a starting point, but now we have started to prove theories, and this goes beyond faith. No matter which religion you have belonged to, everyone has doubted their blind faith in everything when they study science. This is a good thing, because a scientific mind searches for answers, accepts nothing at face value, and wants to prove how and why, rather than just accept someone else’s supposition of it. This is why we all know Newton’s laws of motion and gravity, and have heard of E=MC^2 but only a few people care about string theory. Theories are good, but they’re now irrelevant to most until proven. I never said “belief” isn’t a part of everything, it is. I just choose to believe what I can see and verify, and look at explanations that involve mathematics and logic, instead of jumping to faith and “trust me” statements. I think many more people are turning that way. If it leads to enlightenment of people, and gaining more knowledge, and understanding the world better, isn’t that a good thing according to vedas themselves?
If science calls something dark energy, I am sure someone will go back to the vedas and find a verse or two to show how it fits in perfectly with theory, however, this just doesn’t cut it for me, because as I said earlier, really enlightened and smart people speak clearly, and take time to explain, and cover all questions. With accumulated knowledge that is tinged with religious overtones that were prevalent in the day, the meanings are being hidden, morphed, misread and interpreted as per one’s desire. This is great for abstract art, but for science, a little less desirable.
Also as for the past and time, anything that’s measurable is acceptable. I will have written this in the past when you read it, yet I am sure you will not agree with it. That logic goes nowhere, because I thought I was the one you were trying to show up as an unbeliever as time passes. Had I written this 1000 years ago would it make it more believable to you? Thus the ancient texts do not turn me off because they are ancient alone, but because they are written for a society that is long dead and gone, and being interpreted by one who knows a lot more now, and is also more creative, and is reading too much importance into them. If knowledge is the ultimate goal, who cares where it comes from. Do I have to accept Indra and Brahma before I can acquire knowledge? If so I have a problem with that. Do I have to accept what they say at face value without questioning? Do I have to read things written vaguely (on purpose or lack of language capability) which some people interpret one way and others another, and then fight till eventually one wins and drowns the other out? That’s religion in a nutshell isn’t it? The world has moved to a fact based one. You shirk you get fired, you don’t earn you starve, you don’t pay your internet bill, you can’t bore forum members with a million word debate, you can’t solve the problem of hypersleep, you can’t go to alpha centauri, you don’t invent a better propulsion system than rockets, you won’t go to mars. This is the world today, and it’s increasingly connected and increasingly fact based. Answers need to be to the point, and not vague. Thus relevance.
I am sure many people will continue their interest in them, and many without an ounce of faith (like me) trying to look at them objectively and in context of when they were written, to get a true understanding of what they meant. As I stated earlier, vagueness is often associated with deep meanings, whereas it’s the reader who is inserting the meanings, not the writer. This is good for stories, but not good for building upon as a science. Also, the more intellectual we tend to think of ourselves as, the more into abstract we seem to go, which is fine, so long as we are able to accept that the abstract, by very definition, is chaos, and thus the thread you’re on may not be the right one. In fact, in all probability, it IS the wrong thread, since the more intellectual you are the more in the abstract you think. For creativity in things like music, this is a good thing. Artists, writers, musicians all yearn to have this quality – however I resent when people take this to be “superior” in every sense. Joe Satriani is my Buddha of guitar, but I am sure he could learn a lot of non-guitaring stuff from me as well.
To assume that any belief explains everything is arrogance, and arrogance leads to the end of learning. That’s why I like the way modern science is set up. It says here is what we’ve found, and here is exactly what we did to find it. If you can prove us wrong we will reward you. We have a billion unanswered questions and a million answered, and all of those answered could be wrong too. Until someone comes along and proves those wrong, we accept it, but we welcome any attempts and will name the new law/equation/theory/finding after you (if proven to a great extent and not contradicted with proof from others with other aspects of looking at the same thing).
That’s something I can follow.
No doubt there are many things not explained even today. Déjà vu, impending peril, blind luck, and a million more things. So be it. I have no doubt that the vedas offer an explanation of everything. Actually, so does every religion. It’s a grand plan, and if you cannot comprehend god, how can you comprehend his reasons. Your kid died? God loved him/her. You failed, got beaten up, had misfortune? It’s God testing your faith. You had something good happen? God rewarded you. Replace God with whatever you want. Indra, Allah, Christ, Buddha, Knowledge, chi flow, dark energy, law of averages… You don’t understand? That’s because God doesn’t want you to, coz you’re not the chosen one, or indra is being blocked by an evil force, or you yourself are to blame because you are a blasphemer by disregarding the teachings of <insert holy text here>.
Everything just fits easily when you take even a small leap of faith. However, when you start using only logic and demanding understanding that can be passed on in simple words, most of these leaps of faith are left languishing. It’s always the fault of the seeker, and never the fault of the texts themselves, or the teacher of the texts.
I can see what you’re saying, but I prefer to look at it as the radiation of energy in all directions. The light and heat get weaker the further you go, and the shape of the sun is a spheroid because it is observed so from various angles, and the physics of gravity thus far prove it to be thus. By your logic any shape can be proven to not be that shape. A line is a collection of dots and never perfectly straight… this is what I would call overthinking. What purpose does it serve except to make it akin to a candle, and then take a leap of faith into believing that radiation is an “essence”. Why not just call it radiation, and leave essence as something I put in my milk to give it a vanilla flavour? Why is it that modern science tries to distinguish everything by giving it a new word. What people called birds biology broke into hundreds of thousands of species. Clarity is formed when broken down, perhaps this is why all things faith based want to converge everything into one. The murkier the better, because then it leaves more things open to interpretation. Why not break them down to an atom, and study that atom. You use the example of the river flowing into the ocean, and losing it’s identity, why is that important. It’s taken on faith that this is important, and it then requires another jump of faith to believe that this is the true path to enlightenment. However abstracts haven’t built this world and new civilisation of ours. It’s specifics, and the separating of disciplines. If everyone had to learn everything, and try and live only by the old beliefs, we would have no specialised heart surgeons, and every heart attack would be fatal.
Again it sounds to me more like losing consciousness (as in passing out and letting your mind run wild). Many marijuana smokers I know report the very same thing. When I went to Nepal last year, and met and spoke to some of the hundreds of Sadhus there, they also reported that it made it easier to meditate. It cleared the mind. I asked them also what meditation was to them, and they all said very personal things. “For me…” actually “Mere liye…” since they all spoke Hindi to me… and that for me starts with an “I”. The very fact that it’s personal, makes it not about anything of global importance, but like any other self-serving experience. I have a detachment from all things material when I sleep, when I focus on something, when I day dream, or even sometimes when I sit about looking into the distance. There are always thoughts there though, and it is my mind at work, so I still do not get this whole idea of wisdom flowing into you. Sure your synaptics firing randomly making a pattern that gives you an aha moment and snaps you out of a dreamy state, definitely, that’s how I get article ideas and headlines, or cover stories.
So if I don’t believe it to be a higher science, and I am not willing to make leaps of faith I can never experience it? Is it even remotely possible that people will accept the explanation that I offer, which is that perhaps it is just a mind searching for its own superiority, to feel important, to feel a sense of purpose that gives people these feelings – perhaps even delusions. Something like everything seeming to be in slow motion just before you’re about to have an accident. It’s a mind trick, where your brain goes into overdrive, and your focus is heightened in a hurry, which makes you feel like it was slow motion, because you happened to notice a hell of a lot more than you usually do. Thus the noticing of events is increased, but the absorption of events is still normal, and thus it’s like slow motion. Very much like shooting in 60 fps and then watching back in 30.
I never claim to side with either Quran or Muslims. I have in fact had a lot of discussions with my muslim friends about the same topics, and even with a few mullahs who bothered to sit down and talk to me when I was younger to answer the same questions I ask here. Although in the end, it ends up being an agreement to disagree, I have only ever received a death threat from one Muslim. I have also received the same from many Christians and two Hindus, so I won’t read too much into that. All I have ever said is there is an inclusive way of discussing things. I called you communal earlier and it upset you, which was the exclusive way. You called me ignorant and other things, those are not inclusive. We are debating because neither did you say science was wrong, and neither did I say the vedas were wrong, we are only debating whether the vedas are a true science and whether they can actually be called a higher science at all. If I would have said all Hindus are evil and the vedas are an evil text that should be burned as it is corrupting the world… well you wouldn’t want to talk to me either. Heck I am sure I would have received at least a death threat or two. My pointing out to you about revealing your identity was to remind you again that perhaps if you treated it as a debate you were really having in a room full of Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, you would be more careful with “how” you said something, nothing more.
Why not? What’s wrong with adding a fresh perspective to the idea that islam teaches so and so, if some people are saying it doesn’t. It’s unfair to try and confront you purely about idol worship and silly superstitions and say that this is how Hinduism manifests in the majority, thus this is the only Hindusim that matters.
I also wanted a proper clarification. Do you or do you not think that those praying to idols and doing superstitious rituals, and pandits making money of said things are just as bad as what any other religion does in this regard, and is ruining the Hinduism that you believe to be the right path. I only ask because your thoughts about every other religion are very clear to everyone, except the manifestation of so-called Hinduism.
Arrogance is the opposite of the useless figurehead we have now, but to me it seems like extremism either way. Arrogance prevents people from learning, it instills the highest sense of “I” and thus goes against everything you seem to stand for in your quest to enlightenment. For me, the seekers of truth are never arrogant unless the very act of appearing to seek the truth is being done for fame. See Arnab, he doesn’t seek the truth, he merely wants to outshout everyone and make a name for himself. See Lalit Modi, and what arrogance got him. A humble but firm person is what I’d rather have, but I don’t see any right now.
Thanks. I was also reading from that site before this. Will check out Aurobindo when I get some time, but I usually hate reading other’s interpretations of what I can read myself.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. I expected that
I know it’s your religion, and thus you feel a sense of entitlement towards being able to mock it, but you could have found a more tasteful way of making the same point and also being funny.
Since god is in everything and everywhere according to the faith you seem to have (correct me if I am wrong), then you could theoretically go into a Mosque or a Church , and it wouldn’t matter whether you were facing mecca or a Christ statue, since they are also made from the same atoms that you are made from, would you be able to say a prayer in your mind, and would this amount to a holy experience?
If yes, then I assume you hold this to be the real faith of India, and thus automatically think it stupid for people of India to demand anything being broken down or demolished for silly religious reasons.
When one dies, or passes on in your faith, what happens to them? Are they not resurrected again, just because they followed the wrong religion? If they are, then why bother, if they aren’t, and come back as frogs, rot in hell, wander about the cosmos as lost souls, etc., what do you care what they believe? So long as they don’t harm anyone and live a decent, peaceful life and help those who need it, does this really matter?
Aren’t they non-believers to you? They certainly don’t believe in what you believe in… Control is attempted by every group eventually, in some form or the other, some are more subtle and pander to your egos to make you believe, some just outright demand it… Such is the way religion works everywhere. There are also open minded people you can talk to and closed-minded extremists who will threaten murder in every religion, and it speaks more about that individual than it does about the religion in my opinion.
skeletor
Chosen of the Omnissiah
and Mahabharata happened around the time of transition from Dvapar Yuga to Kaliyuga.
So you mean to imply that continents were different 5000 years ago.
hmm, hmmm and hmmmm.
Hrishi
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I think , He writes that information on an IPad !!!! My phone starts lagging even when I read it through tapatalk.
rhitwick
Democracy is a myth
Hey @mediator, I went through your most coveted posts #87 and #89. I saw no 'question' that you were so desperate to make me answer.
Could you please repeat them?
@MODs/Admins
Can we have two more options in the pole?
new option 1>I want congress but not Rahul Gandhi
new option 2>I want "AAP" (aam admi party) to win nationally and form coalition free govt.
Could you please repeat them?
@MODs/Admins
Can we have two more options in the pole?
new option 1>I want congress but not Rahul Gandhi
new option 2>I want "AAP" (aam admi party) to win nationally and form coalition free govt.
CommanderShawnzer
Steam High Templar
How does Raaabo write such long posts?
rhitwick
Democracy is a myth
b/w, if anyone still cares to answers these questions I would be fortunate.
With all the knowledge flowing here on religion and 'Dharma'/Science of consciousness its really necessary for me to set up a timeline to understand the knowledge properly.
Its very likely we ended up explaining things out-of-context. What if our understanding of these texts today are wrong and actually meant something else?
Timeline would help us to
>locate where it was generated,
>by whom?
>What was the social structure at that time
>Could it have effected the texts described in the books?
>What religion was practiced at that time?
>If all the books (if not books but Shruti) were formed or conceptualized at same time?
>If not then separate timeline for each book.
b/w from Mediator's post #232
So, its really not possible to compare any religion in particular against "Hinduism". If we go by set theory, How can we compare a subset with a superset?
No no, please continue. People who are interested are actually reading your posts.
*www.bjp.org/index.php?option=com_c...defining-movement-in-time&catid=92&Itemid=501
Specially this part(the whole page indeed) which kinda clashes with Supreme Court verdict that was quoted by @mediator earlier
If Hinduism or Hindutva is nothing but anyone who lives in India irrespective of which faith he believes then how do they write "other faiths" here?
b/w The website of BJP does not mention anywhere in its "Privacy policy" if any third party is allowed to quote any part of its contents without prior approval. I hope I've not done any federal crime by doing so here. If the MODs and Admins think my post could bring legal problem to them please delete respective link and posts.
And, SUN for the ignorants
*nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/sunfact.html
With all the knowledge flowing here on religion and 'Dharma'/Science of consciousness its really necessary for me to set up a timeline to understand the knowledge properly.
Its very likely we ended up explaining things out-of-context. What if our understanding of these texts today are wrong and actually meant something else?
Timeline would help us to
>locate where it was generated,
>by whom?
>What was the social structure at that time
>Could it have effected the texts described in the books?
>What religion was practiced at that time?
>If all the books (if not books but Shruti) were formed or conceptualized at same time?
>If not then separate timeline for each book.
b/w from Mediator's post #232
This means or as I understood, Hinduism means 'Indianness' as the term coined by @mediator. And according to Supreme Court of India this Indianness is includes the way every inhabitant of India lives his/her life. This Indianness not only includes opinion of the persons who practice "Veda", "Upanishada" or "Gita" rather also includes "Quaran", "Hadith", "Bible","Guru Granth Sahib", "Tripitaka", Jain Agamas, the Jewish Bible or Tanakh, 'The Zend Avesta' for the Parsi community and others.Supreme Court said:
So, its really not possible to compare any religion in particular against "Hinduism". If we go by set theory, How can we compare a subset with a superset?
My apologies. I didn't mean to bore people! I'll stop the long posts and go back to iPad and BB Z10 sized posts
No no, please continue. People who are interested are actually reading your posts.
This kind of clashes @mediator's definition or posts till now.BJP website said:
*www.bjp.org/index.php?option=com_c...defining-movement-in-time&catid=92&Itemid=501
Specially this part(the whole page indeed) which kinda clashes with Supreme Court verdict that was quoted by @mediator earlier
*www.bjp.org/index.php?option=com_c...reat-nationalist-ideology&catid=92&Itemid=501BJP Website said:
If Hinduism or Hindutva is nothing but anyone who lives in India irrespective of which faith he believes then how do they write "other faiths" here?
b/w The website of BJP does not mention anywhere in its "Privacy policy" if any third party is allowed to quote any part of its contents without prior approval. I hope I've not done any federal crime by doing so here. If the MODs and Admins think my post could bring legal problem to them please delete respective link and posts.
And, SUN for the ignorants
*nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/sunfact.html
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Hrishi
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My apologies. I didn't mean to bore people! I'll stop the long posts and go back to iPad and BB Z10 sized posts
It may seem Boeing unless one actually reads it ( I do ) . You write well and definitely with an open mind. I appreciate everyone who shares their views.
Please continue.. I didn't meant it that way.
rhitwick
Democracy is a myth
I've no problem with them not being available written. I just want to know and set a timeline when did hey cam into existence first.
As do millions, but alas the past is harder to explore than the future even.
theterminator
Wise Old Owl
A lot of people died in Muzzafarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. Rumour is that media is not reporting killing of Hindus
OP
theserpent
Firecracker to the moon
A lot of people died in Muzzafarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. Rumour is that media is not reporting killing of Hindus
I am sure people of all faiths have died. Let's stick to condemning such idiocy, or else everyone else will start counting even dead bodies by their religion. Should I start asking how many poor atheists were killed? This is the problem with this country.
As someone who has lived through riots myself and actually seen people kill one another, I can tell you that there is often more than pure and simple religion involved. I know of people who killed / tried to kill competitors in business when riots started. Even suitors for the same girl have attempted similar things. Political goons start these things for power and to raise tempers, and then other goons take over killing off their enemies under the guise of religion. how long are even educated people like us going to keep falling into this trap?
theterminator
Wise Old Owl
Politicians added fuel to the fire here as always.