How am i suppossed to react

[Eastern Mind]

Pranam EM

If a question is posed and someone answered by Shastra examples (not by some peripheral obscure text but major Shastra which most Hindu revered to ) then someone else offers their opinion based on nothing that’s fine also because everyone is entitled to it but if the answer is reiterated again and again then it becomes a challenge, in direct defiance off the Shastra pramana that were offered. What do you think, how one should react in those circumstance?

Pranam GP: Personally, I walk away, disengage myself from the discussion, not unlike talking with a Christian who repeats the same arguments over and over. Why keep going around in circles when you're not getting anywhere? There are many ways of putting it. Agreeing to disagree is one of them. Staying on it just leads to unnecessary unhealthy ego battles if you're not careful. It only happened to me once here on HDF, and I blame myself for not walking away earlier. Sometimes we just take this place too seriously. I have the difficulty when one speaks as if He is the authority, not the shastras, and doesn't allow for any remote possibility of him or her misinterpreting or being incomplete in the understanding in the slightest. Now that is hard to take. A bit like my friend who keeps asking me to grow bananas in the temple garden. How many times can I say, "Its too cold of a climate!" without attaching emotion to it.

Even the greatest saints admit to making mistakes on the path. That's how we learn. Infallibility is reserved for God.

Aum Namasivaya

[devotee]

Namaste GaneshPrasad ji, Saidevo, EM and all,

The problem that GaneshPrasad ji has pointed out is one. I would like to mention slightly different problem where the Shastras are referred to erroneously in isolation. The Shastras have a hierarchy & that should not be violated. Then as there has been no dedicated organisation to preserve the purity of the original texts, there have been manipulations in some of the shastras. This must be understood well & dealt with appropriately. Again, we cannot blindly accept the English translations which most of the time are done shabbily. There many places which when translated literally would give ridiculous meanings. In those cases the context must be kept in view (any meaning out of context is most certainly wrong or a manipulation afterwards) and it should be seen that Shrutis are not violated.

However, we cannot expect everyone here to be expert on Shastras & we can always find such stubbornness in interpretation of the shastras in a particular way here or there ... in those cases when one is not listening ... I think I would just leave the scene (may be after reporting the matter to the moderator). IMHO, the satsang should be always with people having right intentions and it should be guided by honesty to seek the Truth.


OM

[kd gupta]

Everything is acceptable except making it a PONGA PUNDIT FORUM .

[Sahasranama]

The problem that GaneshPrasad ji has pointed out is one. I would like to mention slightly different problem where the Shastras are referred to erroneously in isolation. The Shastras have a hierarchy & that should not be violated.

Well I do agree that the shastras need to be understood in the proper context, but any hierarchy of importance is sect, person or subject dependent. The vedas are generally accepted as the final authority, but the vedas are not always straight forward in meaning. Many other scriptures are necessary to understand the vedas, including the vedangas. The Mahabharata says, itihāsa-purāṇābhyāṁ vedaṁ samupabṛṁhayet: "One should complement one's understanding of the Vedas with the help of the Itihasas and the Puranas." The atharva veda, the chandogya- and the brihadaranyaka upanishad declare the itihasas and puranas to be the fifth veda: itihāsapurāṇaṃ pañcamaṃ vedānāṃ. Depending on the sect, the agamas are also considered to be the fifth veda. The rishis sympathised with the fact that the vedas are not accessible to everyone, as the Bhagavata Purana says: strī śudra dvijabandhunām trayi na śruti gocara, A woman, a sudra and a dvija-bandhu, they cannot understand Vedic language, therefore vyasa wrote the Mahabharata. Later he compiled the Bhagavatam which is described as the ripe fruit of the vedic tree and as brahmasamhitam, equal to the vedas.

Again, we cannot blindly accept the English translations which most of the time are done shabbily. There many places which when translated literally would give ridiculous meanings.

Looking at the alternatives, the Hindi translation and commentary of Swami Dayananda are often mentioned. Swami Dayananda had hatred for all Hindu sects and tried to seperate the vedas from the other scriptures of Hinduism. He had very little consistency in his interpretations and gave meanings to mantras as they soothed him. His interpreations were based in missionary ideals, victorian mores and he used the Christian concept of the trinity of the father, the son and the Holy Ghost to interpret Hindu philosophy. One God and one book, that was his mission. Just like the Christians he preached against idolatry and called many practices of the Hindus superstitious. The efforts of Swami Dayananda have done more damage to Hinduism than translators like Ralph Griffith and Max Müller have done. Trying to create this utopian fantasy of "going back to the vedas and discarding the rest." Hindus praise Dayananda for bringing back the vedas and accuse the English translators of trying to spread Christianity. The irony is mind boggling. The English translations are not perfect, but if you ask me, the translations of Dayananda are even worse. Most scholars do not consider his work to be of any high standard, mostly because it lacks consistency in translation.

[Eastern Mind]

proper

Vannakkam Sahasranama, GP, Devotee, et al ... Who decided 'proper'? Even that varies from person to person. Go about watching the opening invocation to Ganapati at 50 different temples. Each is doing it the 'proper' way, yet to each of the other 49, the others are doing it the improper way!

Some of the messages on here are not being written in 'proper' English, yet those messages mostly come across loud and clear. Confusion usually only arises when sarcasm or some other more subtle messaging technique is used.

Now, I like the diversity. I'm not here to convince, but to explore. I like hearing of other points of view, but rarely do I take some quote of scripture as 'absolutely pure and to be understood' as for one, as Sahasranama said, its been translated. This is a bit like reading a poem, or looking at art. One would have to psychically understand or 'enter' the other soul's mind (the one who wrote it) to truly grasp the intended meaning.

I see an example in today's holy men. Various sampradaya leaders meet at international conferences or send young sannyasins to stay for awhile in various other schools. Unlike some absurd tales of the past when sannyasins clashed (how absolutely ironic) they all get together and share insights, methods of teaching in welcoming ways. They are fully aware of the differences, yet don't sit around and debate. Why? Because they see deeper than that, either know or have had glimpses of the absolute reality within.

Aum Namasivaya

[Sahasranama]

Vannakkam Sahasranama, GP, Devotee, et al ... Who decided 'proper'? Even that varies from person to person. Go about watching the opening invocation to Ganapati at 50 different temples. Each is doing it the 'proper' way, yet to each of the other 49, the others are doing it the improper way!

I don't mean it in a general way. There may be 50 proper ways of invocating Ganapati, but sure you could think of one improper way of doing it? For example, offering tulsi leaves to Ganapati is considered improper. I don't think it's always straight forward and easy to put something in the "proper" context. I do think there are improper ways of using the shastras. The Bhagavata Gita for example can be used improperly to justify selfish wars. The vedic saying "krinvanto vishvam aryam," "let us make the world noble" can be misused to justify the Nazi war, if people misunderstand the meaning of the word Arya.

I see an example in today's holy men. Various sampradaya leaders meet at international conferences or send young sannyasins to stay for awhile in various other schools. Unlike some absurd tales of the past when sannyasins clashed (how absolutely ironic) they all get together and share insights, methods of teaching in welcoming ways. They are fully aware of the differences, yet don't sit around and debate. Why? Because they see deeper than that, either know or have had glimpses of the absolute reality within.

Online people can look deeper into the subject, look up information, think about it, respond later and even make modifications using the edit buttom. It's like playing chess through mail, instead of playing speed chess. I used to have a Hindi/Sanskrit teacher who was from the Arya Samaj. I didn't spend my time debating him, but learning whatever I could. In real life, people are more often on the defence, so debates aren't always fruitful. Not debating is a good strategy to keep everyone happy.We mortals have to learn to shut up sometimes, but rest assured that fearless geniuses like Shankaracharya, Ramanuja , Appayya Dikhitar, Madhvacharya or Abhinava Gupta would not keep quiet.

There's a beautiful shloka in the Bhagavata Purana about learning from different shastras:

aṇubhyaś ca mahadbhyaś caśāstrebhyaḥ kuśalo naraḥ sarvataḥ sāram ādadyātpuṣpebhya iva ṣaṭpadaḥ

"Just as the honeybee takes nectar from all flowers, big and small, an intelligent human being should take the essence from all scriptures." 11.8.10

[satay]

namaste sahasranama,

Swami Dayananda had hatred for all Hindu sects and tried to seperate the vedas from the other scriptures of Hinduism.

I don't think you are doing justice to dayananda with those comments. Please get more familiar with this contirbution. He didn't 'align' with the christians but fought them with logic!

That said, my opinion of him might be biased because I went to arya samaj school for a few years.

[Sahasranama]

Of course, I will not deny his contributions, but I will also not let his contributions stand in the way to look critically at what he preached. He did indeed fight against Christianity and Islam, he reconverted a lot of people back to Hinduism. But there's no denial that his ideology was heavily influenced by Christianity and Islam from association with the Brahmo Samaj and the Theosophic society. Some similarities: fighting against idol worship, only one god and one holy book, Dayananda's traitavada derived from Christian trinity and his interpretation of the vedas mostly in a moralistic sense. He also tried to degrade other sects in Hinduism which he said were based on superstition. Swami Dayananda was dealing with a lot of psychological childhood problems which led him to rebel against Sanatana Dharma. He associated murti puja with the fights his parents had about religious observences. He lost his faith in Shiva and left home, because a mouse ate some prasadam. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for him.