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yajvan
14 April 2009, 05:40 PM
hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

Namasté

Have you given any thought to (interesting) opposites? Yes, we have big vs. small, fast vs. slow, etc. we see these things all day. But what of the things that makes one puzzle at its logic?
Some examples:

Civilization fights for peace
Groups of unrest rally and riot to bring order to a Government.
A tall (tall) building must go deep in the ground ( the opposite way) to gain its height and strength.
Wood contains within it fire, the element that can destroy it.
Water, the element that can extinguish fire, also has within it the element of oxygen( H2O) that allows a fire to grow in strength.
A thorn in one's finger is removed by another thorn
In ignorance ( moha or avidya) happiness is thought of as the collection of more things. These then must be managed and brings more attachment and thicker ignorance
The notion of we only live once and think like this because we cannot remember our past life(s) - yet we also cannot remember what we had for lunch yesterday, and take our memory to be reliable.Do you have any that makes you scratch your head?

praṇām

mithya
15 April 2009, 02:03 AM
Do you have any that makes you scratch your head?



You have to die in order to live.

devotee
15 April 2009, 02:28 AM
Namaste Yajvanji,

You can add this too in a lighter vein :

"Islam" word has come from Arabic root, "Salema" meaning Peace, purity etc. However, the peace in the world has been more adversely affected by followers of Islam today !

Regards,

OM

yajvan
15 April 2009, 11:01 AM
hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

Namasté




"Islam" word has come from Arabic root, "Salema" meaning Peace, purity etc. However, the peace in the world has been more adversely affected by followers of Islam today !


mithya writes,

You have to die in order to live.

Yes, good points.

Mithya's idea made me think of this:

In order to be lively and alert, one has to take rest as if dead... and the more 'dead' we are when asleep the more alert and lively when awake - and we say ' I rested well' .
Another is with metal. To make metal/steel hard, it has to be melted and made soft. Then on its cooling it hardens even more.
Another is to have fresh ideas , instead of filling the mind with more ideas, one emptys the mind and allows ideas just to come in.any more?

praṇām

satay
15 April 2009, 11:54 AM
Namaskar,

I was thinking that how peculiar that we live in this sensory world yet must look inside as oppose to looking outside to experience who we really are. Bizzare...

yajvan
15 April 2009, 12:12 PM
hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

Namasté satay


Namaskar,

I was thinking that how peculiar that we live in this sensory world yet must look inside as oppose to looking outside to experience who we really are. Bizzare...

Yes, a good one... its like a bow, you have to pull the string back, to make the arrow go forward. You have to withdraw the senses ( pull them back) to see the potential of who you are.


I was also thinking of this thing called 'retire'. One retires when they are done with the day , or when done working. Yet if you
re - tire , then then are going back 're' and doing the thing that made you tired, no?

Maybe the correct word is 're-freshed'. As one is done with work, they are re-freshed .

any more?

praṇām

yajvan
15 April 2009, 06:20 PM
hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

Namasté

I was thinking of one, and then many.

I find it interesting that we :

have 2 eyes but can only see one object
have two ears, but can only hear one collective sound
have two nostils but can only smell on thing at time
yet we have one mind, but can think mutiple thoughtsany more?

praṇām

saidevo
16 April 2009, 09:20 AM
Namaste Yajvan.

• the vow of silence (mauna vrata) is an oxymoron because one can hold the tongue but not the mind.

• two eyes, two ears and two nostrils colloborate for one action, but two heads? I wonder how RavaNA with his ten heads managed!

• a student can have only one teacher (gurukulam) or many teachers, but a teacher normally has many students.

• Real world entities (this is a computer database management concept) can have one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one or many-to-many relationships.

What about the sandhi that unites the opposites?

mithya
16 April 2009, 12:31 PM
You must start near to go far.

yajvan
16 April 2009, 02:23 PM
hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

Namasté

the opposites on the activity of the mind:

We find the mind to be active, uncontrollable like the wind says Arjuna in the Bhāgavad gītā. It is flying here and there and gets us into miscief.

Yet the mind is intert and is not a real entity, hence it is forever dead says the Yoga Vasișțha (5.13 Chapter on Dissolution).
It continues and says, beings in this world are killed by this dead thing, how mysterious is this stupidity.
The mind has no self, no body, no support and no form yet by this mind is every thing consumed in this world.

...and the following is offered in verses beginning 5.50
When the mind stops linking itself to the past and to the future, it becomes no-mind. If from moment to moment
your mind dwells on what is and drops it effortlessly at once, the mind becomes no-mind, full of purity.


praṇām

mithya
17 April 2009, 08:49 AM
The best one thus far:

We must become what we already are!

yajvan
17 April 2009, 11:55 AM
hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

Namasté


A key tenet of the meditative process... do less and accomplish more .

praṇām

atanu
19 April 2009, 08:10 AM
Namaste

I find this the best:

That which is night to all beings, then the self-controlled man is awake; when all beings are awake, that is night for the sage who sees.

--------------------------------
Tao is full of meaningful pregnant yet empty opposites. A few choice samples are below:

The cutting up of the uncarved block results in vessels,
Which, in the hands of the sage, become officers.
Truly, "A great cutter does not cut."

Because it would never claim greatness,
Therefore its greatness is fully realized.

Tao invariably does nothing (wu-wei),
And yet there is nothing that is not done.

To seek learning one gains day by day;
To seek the Tao one loses day by day.
Losing and yet losing some more,
Till one has reached doing nothing (wu-wei).
Do nothing and yet there is nothing that is not done.
To win the world one must attend to nothing.
When one attends to this and that,
He will not win the world.

Of all things yielding and weak in the world,
None is more so than water.
But for attacking what is unyielding and strong,
Nothing is superior to it,
Nothing can take its place.
That the weak overcomes the strong,
And the yielding overcomes the unyielding,
Everyone knows this,
But no one can translate it into action.
Om Namah Shivaya

atanu
19 April 2009, 08:27 AM
Isa Upanishad prefers to suggest Brahman by a paradox:

It moves. It moves not.
It is far, and it is near.
It is within all this,
And It is outside of all this.

:)

atanu
19 April 2009, 08:40 AM
Most difficult to comprehend yet simple, again from the Tao:

13.

Accept humiliation as a surprise.
Value great misfortune as your own self.

What do I mean by "Accept humiliation as a surprise"?
When you are humble
Attainment is a surprise
And so is loss.
That's why I say, "Accept humiliation as a surprise."

What do I mean by "Value great misfortune as your own self"?

If I have no self, how could I experience misfortune?

-----------------------
Humble and selfless rarely, if ever at all, encounter humiliation and misfortune.

yajvan
19 April 2009, 10:20 PM
hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

Namasté


The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth
... Niels Bohr ,Danish Physicist


praṇām

atanu
20 April 2009, 02:23 AM
Namaste All,

The knowledge of Spirit is replete with opposite knowledge. For example, we perceive that what is hard is male and penetrates the soft/subtle. How wrong. Actually the subtle already exists in what is hard. It is an illusion that a iron rod has penetrtaed air, since air pre-exists in iron rod.

Thus, Purusha, the highest male is actually most subtle -- the subtlest and it pre-exists in Usha. The Purusha, the subtlest is thus actually a female.:D

Same is with desire. One wishes to possess and thus enter/abide/possess into the objects of passion. But actually, "I" being subtle and all pervasive pre-exists in the object of desire.

On the subtlest Purusha, which is me, play the Gunas, and it appears that the "I" has entered into various objects of desire. Whereas, the subtlest is the all pervasive ever. This is the great mystery. The Purusha (so-called male) that enters Prakriti (so-called female) is actually the female, being the softest-subtlest and being the yoni of Prakriti.:D

Rig Veda thus says that Rudra is one who has the soft belly. Can one imagine? That fire spitting God, whom everyone fears is actually Soft?

Om Namah Shivaya

yajvan
20 April 2009, 12:07 PM
hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

Namasté atanu-ji



On the subtlest Purusha, which is me, play the Gunas, and it appears that the "I" has entered into various objects of desire. Whereas, the subtlest is the all pervasive ever. This is the great mystery.
Let me , if I may, extend the mystery.
This puruṣa पुरुष is rooted in pṝ to grant abundantly, bestow on, to become complete ; If we just look at it as the pṛ root, it is ' to protect' . We also know pura is a city, a town and can also be a fortress or castle.

Yet in the Bṛhadaraṇyaka Upaniṣad - Puruṣavidya Brāhmaṇa, it says,
Puruṣa the one who burnt all evils and hence he came to be known as Puruṣa.
So how do we get to Puruṣa as the one that burnt all evils ( i.e. attachment to sense objects) ?

pūrva पूर्व means former , prior , preceding , previous to , earlier than
uṣ उष् - to burn down - we find this in uṣa
uṣa (usha) as mentioned in your post is early morning , dawn , daybreak & uṣás tisráḥ morning , midday , and eveningNow we can add some words together:
pūrva + uṣ(a) - we get Puruṣa , the One that burnt ( uṣ ) prior or earlier, some say 'first' (pūrva) all evils - as it is called out in the śloka of the Puruṣavidya Brāhmaṇa.

So within Puruṣa we have some opposites - but as Niels Bohr pointed out ( from post 16 above) -
the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
We find Puruṣa 'granting abundantly' i.e. brought forth all of creation. Yet He too burnt first all evils - this too must have come from Puruṣa, or from where else could be the source?

We find opposites, yet great truths, within the same framework of Puruṣaš.

praṇām


another view:

puruṣa - means human being, body; the Supreme Being;
pura - dwelling, house, abode
ṣa - best , excellent , wise; also eternal happiness , final emancipation ;
Hence we can say it is He the Supreme ( the best, most excellent ṣa) that dwells ( pura) within the body (puruṣa)