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deafAncient
12 March 2015, 11:52 AM
Namaste to Admins,

We need a sticky within the Scriptures forum listing for AUTHENTIC translations of the scriptures and sacred writings. I've had to dump PDFs of books when I discovered the missionary/co-oped western indologist/neoHindu status of the translator, or when I read enough to get the gist of the direction the translator is trying to guide you in.

Please...

Believer
13 March 2015, 02:07 PM
Namaste,


We need a sticky within the Scriptures forum listing for AUTHENTIC translations of the scriptures and sacred writings.

The problem with the so called AUTHENTIC translations is that people following different paths within SD think of translations that line up with their thought process as authentic. To some ISKCON is a poison pill, others claim Advaita or Dwaita following, and yet others discard all murthi puja and claim the supreme to be formless. To many Westerners, the swamis who amalgamate SD with their existing Abrahamic leanings speak the 'truth'. So, to everyone, the translations done by the priests/gurus/acharyas of their preference sound authentic and everything else defective. Given that as the backdrop, I am not sure if it is possible to project one set of translations as AUTHENTIC. The Parmahansa Yogananda, the Brahmkumaris, the Arya Samajis, the 'Divine Love followers', the ISKCONites and a million other variations, all have their own interpretations and all claim to be authentic SD. Under the circumstances, it might be difficult to come up with 'A List'. Here is a treasure trove of one set of authentic translations done by some revered acharyas,
http://hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=4544

Best wishes.

Pranam.

deafAncient
13 March 2015, 07:46 PM
Namaste Believer,

Thank you for the link!

Ram11
13 March 2015, 11:14 PM
Namaste deafAncient Ji,

Which tradition of Hinduism do you feel you belong to?
What are your favorite texts?What kind of religious activities do you do daily(Puja/Japa/Yoga/Dhyana etc.)?

Could you remove the word deaf from you profile name,honestly it doesn't feel good to address a person as deaf Ji.

Believer
13 March 2015, 11:33 PM
Namaste,


Namaste deafAncient Ji,

Which tradition of Hinduism do you feel you belong to?
What are your favorite texts?What kind of religious activities do you do daily(Puja/Japa/Yoga/Dhyana etc.)?

Could you remove the word deaf from you profile name,honestly it doesn't feel good to address a person as deaf Ji.

Have you been following his posts in the last 3-4 weeks, or were you on vacation? :)

Pranam.

Seeker
14 March 2015, 02:21 PM
Namaste Believer Ji
I think dA is a women!

Believer
14 March 2015, 07:38 PM
Namaste,


Namaste Believer Ji
I think dA is a women!
My bad!
Yes, she is, I forgot, thanks for the correction. :)

Pranam.

Ram11
15 March 2015, 07:18 PM
Namaste,



Have you been following his posts in the last 3-4 weeks, or were you on vacation? :)

Pranam.


Namaste to all,

I'm reading through the Bhakti Yoga book recommended to me here in this thread.

I came across the term paramahaṃsa. Does anyone think that I'm somewhere in there, towards the base level somewhere? In other words, I have the awareness of something that is formless because that is what I sense.

Namaste Believer Ji,

I got your message!

deafAncient
17 March 2015, 01:55 PM
Which tradition of Hinduism do you feel you belong to?
What are your favorite texts?What kind of religious activities do you do daily(Puja/Japa/Yoga/Dhyana etc.)?


Namaste Ram,

I have no idea at this point, though someone has pointed out Advaitin leanings. This is my suspicion:

What if I'm the one who created all this for myself, or that you, I, and others worked together in the ex-mortal (spiritual state) to create this place, because as spirits, we had learned everything, experienced everything, and have been aware with no beginning and no end? We can't "just simply be," statically, with no movement. It seems like life on earth as a human is a way to temporarily forget all this knowledge and start over again, experiencing the joys of wonder, surprise, learning something new, having new experiences, to create all that we have in many different civilizations through endlessly living lives, one after the other, as a way of "keeping us busy." Perhaps there are people who won't do the work towards moksha precisely because they want to keep getting these new experiences. It requires, though, some form of memory suppression or dampening during each lifetime; otherwise, what is the point if, at birth, you know what is going to happen next with ISIS' attempt to install a medieval Caliphate, or you can speak over 100 languages without schooling? You might as well stay in the ex-mortal state and not deal with the rigors and pains of mortal life.

And the reason I point to animism is because maybe I'm seeing myself in the trees, in the animals and plant life all around me, and I do feel upset whenever I see dead animals on roads and litter on the ground. I want to say, "Hey, child. Please do not litter this beautiful planet, and please treat animals as equals." I feel like when I see such deeds committed, I reach out to the Universe in my own way with the image of this person's face or body and the deed done, for the Universe to deal with upon that person's physical death.

When I was younger and much fuller of anger, I used to promise that "When I die, I will find that person's spirit and put it back in another body on Earth, over and over again, even if that person ends up on a colony on another planet. I will drag him back there. If I die first, I will wait for all of them, and do what I just said."

Is there a sampradāya that reflects anywhere near these ideas? Will I have to create my own sampradāya?

smaranam
17 March 2015, 07:23 PM
Dear Ancient, Namaste :)


Is there a sampradāya that reflects anywhere near these ideas? Will I have to create my own sampradāya?

Everything except your last paragraph. If that is what you are refering to, then you should not create a sampradaya for it! You cannot take karma in your hands and moreover, a pure soul does not have any hatred or feelings of revenge.

I am only talking about the other, good ideas :

Feeling the AtmIyatA and Atma-bhAv --- oneness with all beings and surroundings. THAT idea, that "the tree is me, the deer and squirrel is me " are the very basic core of the Truth imparted by SanAtana (eternal) Hindu Dharma, essentially Vaidic ! So, they form the foundation of the entire range of what you can call SanAtana, Vaidic or Hindu. This is the lowest common denominator of all sampradAya and it is wonderful that you imbibe the values naturally.

a) Atma-bhAv and AtmIyatA (Atma-bhAva : The core of all beings and things is my own AtmA ;
Feeling of oneness in the positive sense towards all and everything -- This is all me. They are all mine. That fondness is AtmIyatA. )
b) prANi-dayA -- compassion towards all beings and regard for their pleasures and pain, sorrow because of (a) -- because all are me or come from the same source as me.

So what you have been essentially saying is that you naturally embibe the basic tenets and teachings of satyam, satya dharma (Truth) brought to us via SanAtan (eternal) Vaidic (emanating from Ved) Hindu Dharma. This is great, it means you live in SatYuga internally. (I can very much relate to this, as I observe cycles of Yuga inside me independant of the cycles of Yuga for the Universe -- I like switching between Sat and Dvapar not beyond that.)

So what is the problem then ? Do you see that there is none? :)
However -- if you feel angry at situations and people, then that has to be worked upon. That is not like Sat Yuga.


If you say "I am from SatYuga but surrounded by Kali Yuga and a culture that appears antithetical." Well, then we build our own Sat Yuga inside us.

Someone like you should be cherishing your own ekAnta -- solitude, since if the core of all beings is your AtmA, where is the question of anyone else?

[I say this as I relate to it but in a slightly different way. I am TWO-in-ONE you see, PrANanAtha and me. If your oneness says there can't be two, we are not two. If you still insist that one of Us has to go, that would be me. Not Him. I may well be His imagination. He is not my imagination. He is far realer than anything else perceived.]

So what does this ekAnta entail? For instance, one may a)be there for those who need them, b)go out and work, be in harmony with colleagues, and c)back to being the recluse. You do not find the necessity to seek new friendships in the world apart from very like-minded beings in spiritual matters.

So back to sampradaya and satsanga (association of Truth-seekers) and shAstra (scripture). You seek simple people, and they may be hard to find, but if you try opening your heart to that paramAtmA -- who is your higher Self, He will make way.

Also, there is no need to feel negatively about Christianity. Let them be. Let you be. Let all be. If you plan a visit to BhArat varsha, that will surely be rewarding. You may want to visit Aurobindo's Ashram in Pondichery.


Hari sundara MAdhava Mukunda, Hari Keshava Mohana Govinda

smaranam
17 March 2015, 08:50 PM
~~~~~

deafAncient
18 March 2015, 12:46 AM
Namaste Smaranam,

I did not mean to include the paragraph about when I was younger and fuller of anger.

The problem I have is, I don't have anyone in person to share this with. It would be nice instead of being alone or being the Native Informant for people who don't understand (which is basically everyone else in Texas).

You say that I show the basic tenets of SD. Do I go anywhere off that basis towards something? If they ask me, "Are you a Sanātani," I say yes? What if they say, "What sampradāya are you with?" Then what? "I don't have one?"

Thank you for your answers. It is interesting to see how I subconsciously show those characteristics within SD without realizing it. You know, I had a dream last year. Nearly all of my dreams with people I don't know in this present life are like memories.

---------------------
I then find myself in a place where I am with friends, either someone's apartment or some place, like a meeting place that is owned by one of the friends (these friends are not in this life I live now). We walk outside, and it is dark. We walk by a group of friends going about separately for the evening, and we talk a bit, admiring the car and a child inside with the group of people (I know we were admiring SOMETHING, but I am not sure since the child popped up in the dream). At some point in the dream, that child walks up to me and hugs me with her face against my tummy and staying there. I don't know who she is. We walk on, to a small place and walk inside.

Inside this small place, only about 20 feet by 30 feet or so, there are chairs like in a meeting place facing the front, and something up front that I did not pay attention to (feels like I saw it so often that I stopped noticing what it was, and I am unable to describe in detail what it is). One detail that I see on the front wall is a "relative time scale" gauge like that of a speedometer on a car, only rectangle with gold-colored division lines with gaps wider on the left side than on the right, and a similar-colored needle anchored at the bottom. There are no numbers on it (in fact, upon editing this writing, I notice the whole time there is no writing anywhere, no signs, no papers, nothing). The woman with a stocky build and long brown hair does something, and suddenly we see the gauge start registering to the right, and the walls all around us except the front become transparent, and the city scene disappears around us and becomes night with a rising sun out of the back left corner of this room. [what is odd is that the sun looks like a super-bright moon because the night sky does not lighten at sunrise]

But, at some point, the walls are solid white as I get up and walk toward the back of the building, away from the seats, and that same woman has a wand of some sort and touches the wall with it, one section at a time (about 4 feet wide). Suddenly, there's a giant dinosaur rendered in primitive graphics in a landscape that we don't recognize. The graphic rendition looks like that from a video game circa late 70s, if it was done on a minicomputer with sufficient memory for some detailing of the image, if you can keep the idea of how simple it was on home computers of the time and be given a powerful computer to substantially make it look better. We can see that it has a wide-set head in blue, something yellow on top that is wide, and a beak that probably matches its body color, and it is not tall relative to its size, but it is very large, about 80 feet tall.

As soon as the walls become transparent and we see this creature, it notices us and squawks at us in a low voice. It approaches the building, and I "indicate" at the woman to get us out of there quickly, but it is too late. The bird-like dinosaur already has picked up the structure with its beak just as the woman does something by the front wall, and that scene disappears. The building falls back to the ground. As we come to sit down again, I see the gauge moving to the limit on the right side, and something goes wrong.

At this point, the whole scene I recall that this particular set of dreams has been at night or in darkly-lit places, not in an evil way, but lighting that is toned way down.

Suddenly, I am in a public place as a result of the accident that is like a mall, and it's darkly lit, almost with black light [along the bottom edge of the walls] so that I can see people just from the luminescence of white or light-colored clothing. I find a woman I recognize, but she doesn't recognize me. I apparently know her as a very good friend, a thin build with a slight tan and short bobbed hair. I think she has brown eyes, and she's wearing a dress that reveals her shoulders. Anyway, I take her hand and we go walking down stairs, which are black-lit for our safety from the sides, trying to give details of her life, and she is surprised by some of the information, but some of it is wrong. At that point, she feels like she doesn't know me and wants to go on with her evening.

Just as suddenly, I find myself back in the time room, which apparently disappears again, and I find myself in a labyrinth-like building with intricate painting everywhere. It seems just patterns of colors in an impressionist style with no define image of [a] scene or a person. It's beautifully done, using pastel colors. In the hallways, you see on the ceiling solid dark red with a gold rectangular border inset one-and-a-half foot from the edge of the side walls and the pastel colors inset within it. It's like a pattern of either different colors daubed on here and there closely together with very little white of the base color showing. This repeats itself down the hall about two-three feet apart. I see a monitor somewhere, where I can see men in turbans looking for something (me, maybe), and I feel like I'm trying to stay hidden, and I come to a section of the wall that has four doors like a closet with two doors, one on either side that folds when you would pull on a handle on either side, only there's no handles on these doors. You just push in the middle, and the doors fold open, and I quickly go in and shut the doors back and stop its to-and-fro movement to hide that I just passed through. The colors of the doors are similar, but there's a different pattern of the same colors. I seem to feel as though they are made of wood lacquered in honey yellow on the very edges.

It's a small entry room that opens out to something similar to the first two hundred feet from the entrance of a mall, only retaining some of the warm colors of the walls behind those doors I stepped through. It appears that this hallway is gold-red tending toward yellow just a bit, enough to take most of the red out, in overall color of the walls and floor, and there are people sitting, standing, talking, etc. and I walk along. It seems it's light when I first walk into this hallway from that small room with the doors, but as I follow people outside it's night-time... I walk some distance and then turn left, walking beside the people into a neighborhood on a street which then turns right, and in between trees, I see a glowing cloud and stars in space. I exclaim just as I'm waking up to go to the bathroom, "Oh no, this is what happened 65 million years ago!" I realized at that moment that the time gauge of that room indicated that we were far, far back in time when it broke, I had the realization that the civilization that you and I live in now is not the first time we've reached this level of technology. It's happened endlessly, life after life. [I noticed that during this dream, no words were exchanged, only feelings and thoughts]
----------------------

I realize that we have gotten way off the intended goal of this post, but that's what tends to happen in my life.

Dhanyavād

smaranam
18 March 2015, 08:19 PM
Namaste Ancient

I understand, everyone would like to share things with someone who understands.


You say that I show the basic tenets of SD. Do I go anywhere off that basis towards something? If they ask me, "Are you a Sanātani," I say yes? What if they say, "What sampradāya are you with?" Then what? "I don't have one?"
For all practical purposes, it is better to just say "I am Hindu" I don't think anyone will ask "Are you Sanatani?" They will ask "Are you Hindu?" acc. to me but I may be wrong.
Generally it is not common to be asked "What sampradAya do you belong to?" It is not a natural Hindu way of conversing.
If you do get into details of shAstra (scripture), you can simply say I follow the teachings of Vedopanishada.

That was an interesting dream. Many times we dream of places and people that we have never been to and with in this life, and places that need not be on earth. They speak of a mixture of past saMskAra (past life) , connections cooked up the the brain in REM sleep based on current impressions, and messages given and things shown by the ParamAtmA or BhagavAn svayam.

he govinda ~ ~