Let's talk Hinduism.

[Charlatan]

I have found this religion to be very varied, but have nailed down a few norms. Let's go through them, shall we?

(1) Kama - sensaul pleasure and enjoyment.
(2) Artha - material prosperity and success.
(3) Dharma - following the laws and rules that an individual lives under, being ethics and duties.
(4) Moksha - liberation from the cycle of action, reaction, birth, death, and rebirth.

Also included is yoga, a kind of meditation and stretching, and focusing on love devotion right action and wisdom. These yogas are regarded as leading to the spirtual goal of life. The practice includes prayer hymns and compassion for living things. A lesson learned here is that by working without attachment one attains the supreme.Posture is important, and the other goal is to realise you are one with God. You must discern what is real, chaste yourself from pleasures, bring yourself under control, and desire liberation.

I find this one to be very much like Buddhism, but it has a God, one that you strive to be with at all times. Meditation is required to get close to Him, so it is like my beliefs too, but it is more formal. That is the thing i do not like, formality. when things get formal, they get false. it is hard to remain true when you are with your God and reamin true as you are likely in awe of Him and want to please Him. I see they believe in rebirth too, with a God? So there is no stopping in nirvana, you go straight back down to be another thing then, reincarnated hey? Why would God want to reincarnate you? If you have lived your life then it is time to be with Him or with in torment, by most beliefs systems, so i reckon reincarnation is a hoot, a myth - really.

Reincarnation, picture if you will a soul. How developed is a soul, normally? Well it must start out somewhere, right? Once it has started, it cannot suddenly grow younger can it? So it ages, maybe dies, but does not gorw younger - that would be reversing the effects of time I think. So how does an aging soul - wherever it came from - pull a new host over it's 'area', infecting the new host? How does the soul enter the new body? Does it dissapear then reappear in the new body? I reall ymust ask questions of anyone who believes in reincarnation, but that is not the be all and end all of htis religion, there is much good here.

I see that it is the oldest religion in the world, with scriptures dating back to the beginning. Hopefully they are reliable. But with scriptures, you assume that God spoke to the people, and that means that God is seperate from nature. But Hindu's believe that they can become one with their God, how can this be if He is seperate from the world around them? He must be part of the world around them i think. In discerning what is real, surely they have found that God cannot speak but through the world around them and through their own mind. How does God enter their minds, does He force His way in? Does He just speak and you better listen? I think that people are deluded when they say they hear the voice of God in a voice that is spoken in words, as if God had a voice, then God would have a tone, and if God had a tone, then there would be character to Him. It is impossible to give these characteristics to a divine being, as he has no voice, tone, vocal chords, (or personality maybe) but does have morals. So scripture is not something I trust, but meditating will bring you clser to the force that is 'God', as He is all around you, as nature is all around you, in the air you breathe and stuff.

Otherwise I find the meditations very good at making people think about what is right and wrong, it could be good for philosophy. If you ironed these few diferences out, and evolution instead of creation, then we would be right on with our beliefs, but such is not the case.

[qwert18]

you can find some interesting commentary on the gita and hindusim, or santatan dharama at About Us | Spiritual, Gitananda, Through, Divine, Religion


here are some summary teachings:

Message of Vedanta | Man, These, Everything, Work, Religion

- Wisdom from Gita

[Kuldeep]

@ Charlatan

I have already talked lot about Hinduism in different threads so do not want to repeat again. For general knowlege qwert18 has provided lot of references, which you may be reffered.

If there any specific question I would try to reply !

[Charlatan]

I am not asking you to reply. What I have done is said this or that about Hinduism hoping to make people turn away from it and onto my path which is Paganism, or a variant of it. The way I have done this is rather efficeint and I have focused on reincarnation and omnipotence and prayer as the basis for my argument, though I did not say anything about omnipotence. Omnipotence does not feature is Hinduism because there are many gods, so that doesn't matter that much to this case. As I said reincarnation doesn't make sense, logically as I claimed, and prayer and scriptures don't either, as God can only speak through nature. I do not believe the gods will speak through any other medium, especially invading a persons mind and planting thoughts into theirs. This has to do with perception, a person cannot think what they cannot percieve, as you might find in a study of consciousness, so, people need to percieve what they think. No one can think something without an origin, and to say that the origin is simply thrust into their mind telepathically by a being with no vocal chords, is a fallacy. And then why are the gods not speaking now to people? They are! It is just people are not writing it down anymore, so it is no longer scripture and no longer studied.

I do not want to get into your scriptures, but I would like to take an example that is rather common. Let's say a god asks a man to go somewhere. In the old days they would write that so and so was asked to go somewhere far away. How do they know it was God? How do people today know when they have an urge to go somewhere they are not being told so by a god? How can you ascribe a voice, which is personal, to a being that is impersonal and has no definition? I know you have a god of wealth, so how does a wealth god sound? To say that they sound as any mortal would have sounded is to say they have chosen to sound that way, which means they have chosen one person to represent them. I don't think any god would choose a mortal over another, this is unethical and shows that they would welcome one over another into their kingdom, don't you agree? So how do you write scriptures about what gods have decreed?

[Kuldeep]

You do not have a question ? Well, I have a question! How you wsould explain on the basis of Paganism "A human, beggar' child is not getting a loaf of bread, but a dog gets delicious buscuits and master soft bed to sleep ???

Is it injustice from nature, or justice or just a chance ????

[Charlatan]

Quote by: Kuldeep You do not have a question ? Well, I have a question! How you wsould explain on the basis of Paganism "A human, beggar' child is not getting a loaf of bread, but a dog gets delicious buscuits and master soft bed to sleep ??? Is it injustice from nature, or justice or just a chance ????

Kuldeep,

I had two questions, namely reincarnation and scripture validility. But as we are on my turn, I would say that it is the way the universe has come together. Things have journeyed from out of the sea, and some have found good places to live and have food, and others have not found good places to live and have found suffering. As generations have passed they have reaped rewards and sorrows too, and depending on what has been provided for them by their parents, and how hard they worked in their youth, then also on natural disasters and phenomenon, they have found the place they are in now. Our pets have been chosen by us so they are lucky, yes you are right about that, they really are.

But have you ever communed with nature? Let the spirits speak to you through the wind blowing by? They do if you can interpret it you know, ask any of my elders, that is what they might disagree on, but I know it to be true, of course you may disagree a too, and maybe it is my imagination, but it keeps me busy at times.

[Kuldeep]

Before, I reply your questions !

Here are my comments on your answer to my questions. It seems in nut shell, you attrubute everything to luck and that too good or bad luck to chance. My question IS that only, "Why some have good luck and some bad ???? !!! Chance can not be the right answer since, the nature which you are talking about can never be REASONLESS. Please try to find out that reason and modify your answer !!!

[Charlatan]

I cannot modify my answer as it is scientifically correct. Everything benefits from the generation before it, and noone is predestined to be anything that does not work with their situation. Take a man that will be a lawyer, he is born from his mother and father and grows up in such a way that paves the way for him to want to be and allows for him to become a lawyer, that is the way his future has come to pass. You can do what you want to a certain extent as if you were a animal, the basic things are there for you. You can walk left and right and find food, but the things man has made are governed by laws to aquire them. So this lawyer to be will need to be cut out for the job of being a lawyer, with interest in it and finances and people accepting him as he 'journeys to the end of the path' and does it, but if he does not follow the procedure, something more than looking for food and playing with others like an animal would do, which is what nature intended I believe, then he will not realise his goals and become something else.

But I think you speak of people that suffer on the side of the road. They suffer there because they have been born outside of the oppurtunities afforded by soceity to those that are 'inside' it, by monetary means and legally, and the rest of us pass them by without a care in the world. So I ask you, what do you do for them besides spare a thought? Maybe you help them, maybe you don't, but are they inside the society or not? Well if they are not inside the society we live in, where we have homes, money and hygiene, then they are inside their own society wher these things don't matter so long as they are together, altough they want them they can make do with what they have I suppose. But this is not about you is it.

You ask me what it is that makes them born outside of society, and you suggest that I will answer that it is luck,and I answer to you that people having children outside of society are fertilising eggs in an alley to live on the streets. Maybe you would ask what of people that lose it all, and I would say that these people have not necessarily been at fault, they are victims of the way the world works. If someone gets cut from above, then they are in the same position as someone getting bumped in a busy market place - it happens, the world changes and people need to change with it. If you can't change then you are in trouble, if you are rejected then you are in trouble. That is society, it moves on, it is cold, it is governed by people looking for the gretaer good, or, driven by greed, and they will not spare a thought for a suffering minority that grows each day. This minority is getting bigger each day in cities I know, but that is my explanation.

[Kuldeep]

I think you have twisted my question.

I would repeat my question by way of a simple example. Two brothers having same parents, same schooling, same training etc. etc. One working very hard but remains unsuccessful in studies, job and in all other social activities. While; the other is easy going type. Takes things very lightly but progresses well in studies, get to very good job and remains successful in social life.

Why this difference, when both had same opportunities and same environment ???

Why this sort of good or bad luck !!!

[Athena]

Reincarnation: soul is not matter so it does not age. I think it possible a soul is like neutrino. A neutrino is an unchanging particle with no mass or almost no mass. It can go through ten miles of lead sheeting without changing, and yet it is said, it can hold a lot of information. I don't know how physicist determine stuff like this, but when I read about this, it dawned on me the soul can like this.

This is my own thought on reincarnation. In reincarnation the souls journey is not one directional. A soul can be well developed, but because we loose memory when we are reborn, we have to do learning each time, and if something is missing in our learning, we can make human errors. During a human experience may give in to temptation, or perhaps our soul has never dealt with this particular circumstance before. This becomes an area of learning for the present incarnation or the next incarnation, to gain the wisdom that makes the soul stronger in this area.

My own thoughts on reincarnation diverge from what is taught, because I do not believe we are punished for the sake of punishment. I believe we choose our experiences for our own soul's reasons. However, life being as it is, we can not fully predict things like what our parents will do, or the economic swings of a country. The unexpected can happen, and the soul may or may not deal it with it well, keeping in mind, that during the human experience, the soul is not conscious of all things, and may or may not be able to access a strength from a previous incarnation.

[Athena]

God speaking to people- We become aware of knowledge in different ways. One way is spontaneous intuition. Joseph Campbell believed myth comes from spontaneous intuition, and this is why people of the world share the basic myth themes. The actually stories are different, because different environments produce different cultures and awarenesses, and sometimes an eel has to take the role of the snake, because in this area there are eels but not snakes.

That is, there is a consciousness and we may or may not be able to intuitively become aware of part of this consciousness, and how we express this knowledge depends on our cultural consciousness and our personal knowledge. Einstien spoke with math, because that was the language he knew, and if he were to stand before today and explain his theory, you may or may not understand him, depending on how much related information you already know. Those who are more intuitive than others and contemplated spiritual matters, often were chosen as spiritual leaders or healers.
Pythagoras and Einstein were doing the same thing, but for them language was math. Through discussion with others the thoughts that were judged particularly wise were repeated by those studied them,and written down as soon as people developed writing. The envirronment of India was particularly productive in spiritual wisdom. times.

While the environment of Athens was particularly productive in secular intellectual development.

Some environments were more like to produce superstition, such as the deserts in the Mid East where mirages decieve the senses, give us genies and demons. The thick forest of Northern Europe were good for sparking ideas of fairies and other mythical beings. Not everything that comes to mind is the product of reality, but is rather a product of human imagination. This is why science is important, to sort our which is of imagination and which is real.

[Athena]

Quote by: qwert18 you can find some interesting commentary on the gita and hindusim, or santatan dharama at About Us | Spiritual, Gitananda, Through, Divine, Religion here are some summary teachings: Message of Vedanta | Man, These, Everything, Work, Religion - Wisdom from Gita

Those are very nice links. I always appreciate information.

I noticed in several pictures there are musical instruments and dancing. We have had periods in time when music was considered very important.
Socrates was emphatic about a well organized mind requiring well organized music. Classical music today is considered good for a baby's developing brain.

[Athena]

Vedic Gods Rig Veda - lore of the verses, enumerates numerous Vedic Gods. Vedic priests beleived in ceremonies & rituals, which were offered to appease these Gods. No one Vedic God has been considered the Supreme God. In fact, different Gods have been considered as Supreme at different times, attributing the powers & qualities of one to another. Apart from Gods who have been attributed specific characteristics, several inanimate objects, qualities, emotions & various forms of nature had also been deified & worshipped. The earliest accepted Gods were Dyaush-pita (the sky father), Prithivi mata ( the earth mother), Vayu (the wind God), Parjanya (the rain God), Surya (the sun God), Varuna (the God of oceans), Agni (the fire God), Indra (the war God), Soma (the God of speech, deity of soma creeper), Ushas (the Goddess of dawn), Yama (the God of death), Adityas (a group of deities, who are six in number in the Rig Veda, eight in most of the Brahmanas & twelve in the Satapatha Brahmana, Aswini (twin Deities), Rudras (eight in number), Vasus (eight in number), Visvedevas ( ten in number). Lord Vishnu, the second Trinity finds a secondary place in the Rig Veda.

One god can never do for mankind what many gods can do. As we get into the mind set of each god or goddess we see reality from a different point of view. When we see reality from many different points of view our consciousness is expanded.

Thank heavens Christianity finally accepted scince or its civilizations would still be retarded by one God and superstition. The sophisication of Hindus depends largely on the number of gods they can study. One who can study them all, is also likely to study all religions, and therefore, has a point of view inclusive of all of them, and not exclusive as the God of Abraham religions, with their jealous and revenge God, make people. I hold it as important to learn of all points of view, and therefore, to be enlightened, instead of in darkness and superstition.

[Kuldeep]

Athena, you might be wondering, why I am silent when Hinduism is being talked. First, I am not a Hindu by nature but only by birth. Also, I am human by nature. I have already talked a lot about Hinduism on other threads and tried to relate with my feeling deep inside ME or in my individualistic consciousness.

Quote by: Charlatan I had two questions, namely reincarnation and scripture validility.

I waited for Charlatan to describe the reason for different luck and destiny of not only human beings but of all living beings; before I would reply his two questions. But since, his explanation has not come up, I am putting my views about his two questions as follows:

Reincarnation has been proved beyond doubt from unique and vary rare revealation of past life's incidences by a number of persons (male or female) all over the world as their first hand informations. One such lady lives in our locality, remembering her two of her last lives.

Recently, I mentioned in a different thread while arguing the possibility of life after death. One member argued, when whole body along with brain gets perished on death then, which part gets reincarnated. He further went on to argue that there is no kind of memory left after death or rebirth so life after death is not possible. To that I said one, that what one calls the person as (I), gets reincarnated and two no body has any kind of memory left about first three years of age; this in no way means that nobody exists during first three years of age from birth. It must be understood clearly that there is no connection between memory and existence. See, during night we do not remember anything that does not mean, we do not exist during night !!

Reincarnation is a must which is based on the urge to attain the lost dearmost body after every death (since body is considered to be as one's own self due to ignorance) and also for the reason to enjoy the fruits of past actions done in various lives (reaction to actions) . Those set of reactions based on actions done, decide the "Luck and Destiny" for next life; I feel it so !!!

Coming to second question about the validity of scriptures of Hinduism, I would say wise people keep on existing over whole time of civilisation. Scriptures must have kept modifying from time to time but, must be having some truth in it to begin with. That truth to my mind as explained earlier on the thread "Do Gods fight and kill each other", is the symbolic representation of various energy levels existing in one's own body, which has been given names of different God and Godesses. This probably was done to make a common man understand.

Main philosophy of Hinduism is Indvidualistic and Universal Consciousness and their interconversion from one into other. Conversion from one Consciousness to other is possible and through overcoming the hurdles of ignorance or vice versa to stick to the ignorance to remain as individual life after life.