Namaste
Thank you Yajvan Ji. I would at some point like to understand what the meaning of comprehension is, although there is some validation and certainly clarification needed between two languages but are we trying to limit the unlimited, balance is always the key portion.
I do however think Viraj has bought up an interesting topic. Although Shiva and Vishnu cant be corrupted or changed by human view they are also without limit, and not bound by human laws. I think Shiva as a man is propagated by Sadguru, who said that Shiva was a man who attained to Self realization about 15000 years ago, showing that it is possible to attain to full knowledge of the Absolute, even while in such a primitive condition as a human being. I met with my friend from Kerala today and he brought the subject up and told me the source of this story, it just came up by chance, he works in the local ayurveda place and I sometimes pop in to see for a chat when its quiet.
I dont have any authority to say true or not, Shiva tattva is wide and broad and Shiva has many forms or expansions, Hanuman being one along with many others, so maybe there was some lila 15000 years ago.
I like the term that Viraj uses as out of the box thinker, I think many people in India and other people who consider them self as spiritual rather than religious like to think and be identified like that. If one becomes to conservative and traditional then things can become slow and limited and confined gradually into a dogma and unlimited beings are then fitted into caskets and Sanskirt words become a subject of Dictionaries and Thesaurus and then there is struggle to find the right context, when all the power of revealed knowledge came through sabda brahma. And what to say about the dreaded falling into sectarianism where one group thinks they are above everyone and everything else.
This knowledge is passed on orally even by traditional standards, how much has the written word caused problems. How much of the written word can solve the problems it has caused, to me its a bit like asking science to create another science to solve all the problems that science has caused us and the rest of the planet, seems another trick of samsara and maya~meaningless illusions in endless cycles.
As I understand the context of shastra is usually and ultimately ineffable because it transcends the human condition which is limited and confined by the mind and language, reality is not confined to anything, even phenomena is unlimited , eternal and infinite, so what to speak of higher more subtle transcendent realities such as Shiva and Vishnu.
Does Shiva and Vishnu have to fit into our understanding of shastra, maybe they can change and invent themslef in another way. Its not an easy subject. Baba Ram Puri talks about some of these things, maybe one can listen to him to get some idea, for me its been with me for a long time, why do we always have to limit the unlimited, why is quoting a script that was usually spoken as a discourse thousands of years ago still to be kept as main authority, Shastra is my authority but is there a certain way that its verified. One example is that this weekend I was at a Buddhist place, its Thai forest tradition, they are meditation branch and there was a reading on certain stuff and most the audience was left looking confused and blank, which was quite funny, then the bikkhu back tracked a bit and said to understand this in the right way one needs different levels of meditation experience.
In Ethics in the Mahabharata by Sitansu Chakravaarti, he says the that it is the essence that remains the constant in Shastra, and it is the essence that we surrender and absorb into. So I am questioning how or what is the means to understand shastra and the discourses and revealed knowledge.
Its a delicate subject, is it better to be an out of the box thinker rather than conservative traditionalists and a keeping with defined terms, the latter will ultimately end up in dogma. Its in my nature and also something that I think is a good thing to always push boundaries.
Pranam
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