Ignorance - an example

[yajvan]

Hari Om
~~~~~

I can recall talking to a person that was a hunter... as usual he talked of hunting and eating the meat he rendered. I talked of animals from a different view point - other then being my nutrition.
The conversation progressed to what was spiritually the right thing to do.
I had my view points as did he, the hunter. And this was how he justified that this 'hunt' this 'sport' was OK.

He said, 'I aimed my rifle at the rabbit and said, God, if this is not the right thing to do, let me shoot and miss hitting the rabbit.' Well, he blew the brains outta that rabbit and at the same time, said "Thank you, now I know'.

This is avidya, the poster-child of ignorance... this pretending to be in communication with the Lord without the credentials. Pretending to be King, without a kingdom. To be attuned with the Lord without the level of Consciousness that puts one with Him or Her. This post compliments the Surrender post http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1576 from a different angle.

Genesis Chapter 1 verse 29 and 30:
29: And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.
30: And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so.

[Kaos]

Ignorance and pride is not only to be found among the deluded, the atheists, or those who practice the Abrahamic religions. Ignorance and pride, a sickness of the mind is also found quite commonly amongst those who subscribe to Hinduism, Buddhism, etc, even from the pontificating, self-righteous, self-proclaimed, holier-than-thou, know-it-all, members of this forum.

[Ganeshprasad]

Pranam kaos

Ignorance and pride is not only to be found among the deluded, the atheists, or those who practice the Abrahamic religions. Ignorance and pride, a sickness of the mind is also found quite commonly amongst those who subscribe to Hinduism, Buddhism, etc, even from the pontificating, self-righteous, self-proclaimed, holier-than-thou, know-it-all, members of this forum.

"The religious duty of a Vaishnava is to offer respectful obeisances to everyone. But that is something the hypocrites, who proudly wrap themselves with the flag of religion, do not like."

Wow ignorance and pride stems from this very statements, no need to wrap everyone else other then vaisnava to be beyond pride and ignorance.

Dharma enjoys us to respect all forms of life irrespective of what school of thought you belong to.

Would a true vaishnav distinguish a hypocrite?

A true vaishnav as narshimehta wrote
2. SakaL lok maan sahune vande, nindaa ne kare keni re ... [Bowing to everyone humbly and criticising none]

Vaach-kaacch-man nischaL raakhe, dhan-dhan janani teni re .. [He keeps his speech, deeds and thoughts pure; blessed is the mother who begets such a one]

Simply making broad statements with half truth and baseless accusation as below would not befit a true vaishnav.

"The Vedas say that one should touch the dust of a saintly person's feet. But a proud sannyasi will not humbly bow down before anyone.

This practice of touching the feet,even today still is the custom in India to respect the elders what to speak of saintly person.

Can there be such a thing as proud sannyasi?
Would they be expected to bow down, do we expect our elders to touch our feet?

[yajvan]

Wow ignorance and pride stems from this very statements, no need to wrap everyone else other then vaisnava to be beyond pride and ignorance.

Namaste Ganeshprasad,
a very good and true observation...

The example I originally gave of the hunter is disturbing, yes? This mind set of values is upside down. And what is taught here, is the person's actions are not in concert with Universal Principles. It is not an exercise in finding fault of the individual - its lesson's learned in life on how avidya manifests. With the same set of incongruent notions of the Divine, it brings us the grief of Kala Yuga. People today are getting their heads cut off on TV no less and thinking they [the aggressors] are winning favor of the Lord and will attain heaven. This is the power of avidya we can observe. For them, how many lifetimes will it take for them to wakeup? And in their path, they leave a wake of sadness, grief, hate behind.


The thief only sees the pockets of the saint; the saint only sees the divine of the sinners.

[willie]

People say one thing and to another all the time so I don't see anything new to it . Just walk on past and let everyone figure it out on their own.

The thing about these forums is that they are like small rooms, and eventually a couple of 2 year olds show up and soon it's a trip to knuckle junction.

Get it over with and get on to a real discussion.

[sm78]

Namaste Yajvan,

Your observations are apt. and I realized them back in college and it brought me much distress.

As far as Kaos's 'observation', it is true that ignorants are rampant in every faith and not restricted to athestic or abrahamic religious groups, hence the observation of Yajvan is even more relevant here.

[yajvan]

Get it over with and get on to a real discussion.

Willie,
we look to you to lead the way... we're ready and willing to discuss the provocative.

[satay]

Admin Note:

Ignorance and pride, a sickness of the mind is also found quite commonly amongst those who subscribe to Hinduism, Buddhism, etc, even from the pontificating, self-righteous, self-proclaimed, holier-than-thou, know-it-all, members of this forum.

namaste Kaos,

What are you trying to say? Please say it clearly. Your post as it is written here could be misunderstood as flaming (other members) or trolling (attempt to drive the thread off its OP topic).

Flaming on this forum is not allowed.

Please also review the forum rules by going to FAQ section.

Thanks,

[Znanna]

Namaste,

Aren't we all ignorant, sort of, by definition?

To attempt to "apprehend" the Holy is self defeating, as the infinite belies definition.


Love,
ZN
/just sayin'

[Kaos]

From the perspective of non-duality, there is no ignorance.

Otherwise, paradoxically, we are only using the dualism of ignorance to overcome ignorance.