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Thread: Creation and Advaita !

  1. #141
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    Re: Creation and Advaita !

    Quote Originally Posted by smaranam View Post

    PraNAm Brahman and Snip

    Its all magic, Indeed ! What a nice way to look at it. Kids (who are in fact a part of that magic) , mistake this magic for real, as the Magician (and grownups) smile with love.
    I am in kindergarten, by the way. The Lord doesn't expect a lot from me yet, and showers kindergartners with love and candy for little things.

    "Why magic ?"
    Because that's exactly what a Magician does
    Living beings breathe. Pilots fly planes. Magicians perform magic. MAyin He is.
    While at it, He relishes the opportunity to see those cute awe-struck , amazed faces of His kids - in the audience.


    Brahman says :
    "Faith on what?
    Faith on reality! one should not even attempt to attain bliss.
    "

    PraNAm again

    There is so much wisdom in that statement. One should not even attempt to attain bliss because bliss is inherently a part of me. I as Brahman am AtmArAm. Revelling in bliss of AtmA.

    -------

    Regarding Snip's reflections on embracing Prakrti, worship, loving 'another' and ananda - I thought the qns and answers were all a part of this reflective post

    Only thing - I prefer the word love to worship as love is the superset, inclusive of worship. And this love is 'ahaituki' i.e. a = not, hetu = purpose.
    Love unconditional, without cause, purpose or intent. Love as a phenomenon.

    I think what Snip is trying to arrive at is this -

    Some say this is a 5th state - TuryAtita (Turya + atita , beyond/after TuryA) . Like the sanskrit movie on Adi Shankaracharya and these nice pictures of Amma etc. show - while guiding others, these Jagad Gurus are AtmArAma.

    Krshna Himself is AtmArAma. He is RAma , no surprise.

    When I alone am , all around I see my own glories [OR VAsudeva alone IS, and i the jiva-BMI don't exist].

    So then, am I not free to revel in love for MySelf in other forms - mountains, waterfalls , birds, flowers, babies , kids, jivas, and also Krshna/Vishnu, Shiva, Devi Maa, the adorable Lord Ganesh .... ? Also, at the same time , am I not free to just silently be ? I have a natural choice, but again its not a choice consciously made.
    I can go into numerous states as I transcend time.

    **This is not like achintya-bheda-abheda. There is a difference. I am not a jiva eternally and a tatastha shakti sitting on the fence between material and spiritual. I am the Whole. Its VAsudeva playing an N-player board-game alone, pretending to be N players. (Who says God doesn't play dice ? )
    Like a little girl plays house or tea-party all by herself, sits in one chair as host, gets up and sits in another as guest1, guest2 and so on.



    Hint from purAnas -

    * Krshna and all Vishnu Avatars and Lord Shiva worship and adore each other.

    * Sri RAm worshipped Lord Shiva.

    * Rukmini who was Goddess Lakshmi, worshipped Gauri (PArvati) and prayed to Her that may Krshna be Her Husband, may the plan go smoothly.

    * 'Unable to resist the temptation' (just a leela) , Lord Shiva disguised as an avdhoot visited Yashoda-Nanda's place to take a glimpse of baby Krshna and 'bless' the child.

    * Gauri and Shiva MahAdev prayed to enter the RAs leela. Gauri got entry right away. Shivji was stopped at the 'entrance' by a gopi. He took a dip in the Yamuna to turn into a beautiful gopi, only then He was allowed

    Jai Gopeshwar MahAdev !

    Jai Shri Krshna



    THAT materializes THAT, as a material cause for THAT
    sarvam khalv idam brahma
    "All indeed is Brahman"
    (Sacred Chhāndogya 3.14)

    love to you

  2. #142
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    Re: Creation and Advaita !

    Love what? That’s again a question
    I can’t love mountains, I can’t love waterfalls, I can’t love kids, I can’t love babies , I can’t love things separately
    That’s love in duality, not eternal
    When love comes to eternal, its love for ONE, then we start to love everything in the same,
    like I do not love my hands, I do not love my legs, I do not love my eyes, instead I love my body.
    The same way, the FAITH in ONE leads one to eternal love, which is undefined.

  3. #143

    Re: Creation and Advaita !

    Quote Originally Posted by brahman View Post
    Love what? That’s again a question
    I can’t love mountains, I can’t love waterfalls, I can’t love kids, I can’t love babies , I can’t love things separately
    That’s love in duality, not eternal
    When love comes to eternal, its love for ONE, then we start to love everything in the same,
    like I do not love my hands, I do not love my legs, I do not love my eyes, instead I love my body.
    The same way, the FAITH in ONE leads one to eternal love, which is undefined.
    PraNAm !

    Yes, I see the mistake I was making, and yet cannot help myself. (I told you I am in Kindergarten)

    I was conveniently just being TVAM padartha, the witness, sAkshi, and not
    considering the identity of TVAM with TAT (That) .

    **Oneness of sAkshi (witness, tvam) with sAkshyam (that which is witnessed, tat).**

    Hence the qn, "Am I not free to....? "

    Just as it is absurd for fingers and toes (rays of the sun) to have independent will or seperate existence (Dvaita) , it is absurd for the sun to admire its own rays/Self seperately.

    Unless the identity equation is not fully understood , unless the subject and predicate in the statement "TAT TVAM ASI" (THOU ART THAT) , has not been equated, the bridge is not crossed.

    And to cross this bridge, study of scriptures, shastra with a Guru is essential, acc. to Shri Shankara.

    SAkshi and SAksham become ONE.

    PraNAm
    Last edited by smaranam; 09 January 2010 at 09:42 AM.
    || Shri KRshNArpaNamastu ||

  4. #144

    Re: Creation and Advaita !

    it is absurd for the sun to admire its own rays/Self seperately.

    Unless the . . . The Sun is a actually a real Person. Every Person is making an Appearence before audiences that are of the highest refinement, who appreiciate the services well rendered by responsible and reliable authority figure heads.

  5. #145

    Re: Creation and Advaita !

    Quote Originally Posted by Mohini Shakti Devi View Post
    it is absurd for the sun to admire its own rays/Self seperately.

    Unless the . . . The Sun is a actually a real Person. Every Person is making an Appearence before audiences that are of the highest refinement, who appreiciate the services well rendered by responsible and reliable authority figure heads.
    Namaste Mohini Mataji

    Yes, this is all on the Leela and/or VyavahAr plane. This has been addressed in my post #138.

    The highest pArmArthic state of the Self is one without a second. Only ONE Self. This is the context in which post #142 and #143 were speaking.

    I shall leave it to Brahman and others to explain more.

    Just a note to readers :

    The pArmArthic state may be hard to understand.
    That is no reason to say that Advaita is false, impurity of Kali Yuga etc.

    On the contrary, the Advaitic Truth shouts out and echoes crystal clear from the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita.


    Again , Advaita does not discard or dismiss Dvaita, it includes and embraces Dvaita
    Last edited by smaranam; 09 January 2010 at 06:16 PM. Reason: post numbers
    || Shri KRshNArpaNamastu ||

  6. #146
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    Re: Creation and Advaita !

    Quote Originally Posted by smaranam View Post
    PraNAm !

    Yes, I see the mistake I was making, and yet cannot help myself.

    there is nothing called mistakes Dear smaranam, its all part of the the तत् , and its all सत् alone. we shall believe it with the grace of the great sages

    ॐ तत् सत्

  7. #147

    Re: Creation and Advaita !

    Quote Originally Posted by nirotu View Post
    Creation and Adviata:

    It looks like an oxymoron to me. If Advaita is all there is, then there was no necessity of creation! If the starting point and ending point of a man’s life is the same (Advaita), I think that the process of creation itself takes on a new meaning that does overshadow Advaita. In light of this reality that creation indeed took place, where does Advaita address this reality? In my view Advaita truly limits its ability to address this point in a meaningful way!

    Einstein’s famous quote “God does not play dice” is very meaningful in that it implies there is an intent and specific purpose to His creation, which certainly is not with any malicious intent. From an Advaitic standpoint this intent and purpose is lost completely when God created us!

    Therefore, we cannot deny that Dvaita has come into being at the moment of creation. Let us exchange and explore the reason and meaning behind the drive to creation. In fact, this was my very first earnest post but, unfortunately it was hijacked to another extreme.

    Blessings,
    Yes , it is very right , God does not play Dice , but it is female power or say Jad Prakriti which creats Jeevatma world , but keep in mind that a jeeva is the part of parmatma or Brahma , similarly as a glass of water form ocean is Ocean in self and Advaita at last, therefore surrender to him and fight for noble cause, till you are away from him .

  8. #148

    Re: Creation and Advaita !

    Quote Originally Posted by brahman;
    “Nirotu, I repeat, nothing has been created.”
    Dear Brahman:

    Thank you for resurrecting my OP. Since this post of yours is directed to me, I would like to attempt to address it.

    First of all, I had to stop at your very first sentence, “Nothing has been created!” and discuss this one statement before making further inroads in to your response. I hope you will not mind probing this further to understand it better.

    This is a profound statement coming from a school – Advaitic teachings of Shankara. But, to me, it raises a serious question.

    It is clear from Shankara doctrine that this world is neither “Sat (absolute reality)” nor “Asat (absolute non-reality)” but somewhere in between and is called “Mithya (Conditioned or operational reality) (vyAvahArika satyaM)”. This world is not a creation of God but is a superimposition of God in that God remains substratum of this universe. Adavita also argues that only the Absolute Self Is real and exists and the universe and our existence as individuals is a false imposition on a real substrate, the non-dual, undifferentiated principle of consciousness (borrowed from HDF source).

    In my humble opinion, this type of reasoning only back-fires, especially, when used to describe Brahman. That is because it is derived from a pre-conceived notion that “creation” never happened,

    Perhaps, this topic of “creation” itself makes for a lively debate.

    Who created this universe? Did God have any hand in it? As I have read in many posts, this topic has been discussed at length by many who, I think, fall in Two basic categories holding opposing views.

    On one side, a community of scientists and philosophers (theists) who believed God’s hand in creation right down to the last step in that everything behaves as if it was programmed from the beginning. Behind all this programming, there is a programmer who acted with infinite intelligence, craftsmanship and perfection.

    On the other side, a community of scientists (atheists) and philosophers who did not believe in God’s hand in creation. They believed this world somehow Emanated (??) and continues to exist because of its own inherent power never needing any external force to keep it functioning. Advaita also holds this Principle that the God as the creator of this universe is only “incidental (tatasthalakśan), which to me, does not constitute the “essential attribute of God” and, therefore, does not do any justice to creator God.

    According to Adi Shankara, God, the Supreme Cosmic Spirit or Brahman,Nominative singular Brahma, is the One, the whole and the only reality. Other than Brahman, everything else, including the universe,material Objects and individuals are false. Brahman is at best described as that Infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent, incorporeal, impersonal, transcendent Reality that is the divine ground of all Being (Borrowed statement).

    However, what you fail to notice is the mention of the essential and intrinsic nature of God that distinguishes Him from all other things, which is His creative power. God’s “creatorship” is as much real as God himself. The creator ship is one of the essential and intrinsic attributes and properties (svarupalakshana) of God. In a way, Shankara, akin to an atheist, has declared that God did not create this world and this world is just a superimposition on God Himself. In doing so, Advaita Vedanta deprives God of “creatorship”.

    If the fundamental tenet of Veda is to affirm creatorship to God, then, are you not negating the very nature of God – His creative intelligence and, thus, the very God creating the universe?

    Is this any different from teetering on the edge of atheism? Just curious to know your take on this.

    Perhaps, we can explore this without assuming adversarial role against each other and before venturing further.

    Blessings,

  9. #149
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    Re: Creation and Advaita !

    Quote Originally Posted by smaranam View Post


    Just a note to readers :

    The pArmArthic state may be hard to understand.
    That is no reason to say that Advaita is false, impurity of Kali Yuga etc.

    On the contrary, the Advaitic Truth shouts out and echoes crystal clear from the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita.


    Again , Advaita does not discard or dismiss Dvaita, it includes and embraces Dvaita
    Very curious to know, what kind of Shruti support this ParamaArthic and Vyavaharthic states? Is it man made?

  10. #150
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    Re: Creation and Advaita !

    Dear Nirotu
    I hope by adding a few brief thoughts to your well worded post, I am not encroaching on brahman Ji or yourself.

    Quote Originally Posted by nirotu View Post
    “Nothing has been created!”
    Quote Originally Posted by nirotu View Post
    In my humble opinion, this type of reasoning only back-fires, especially, when used to describe Brahman. That is because it is derived from a pre-conceived notion that “creation” never happened,
    Good point. In which case what is conceived previous to what? Can the statement of “nothing has been created” pre-conceive my own existence? No, because how can even this idea arise if there is not something or somebody to have the idea. My point is that all ideas of creation arise in the creation and so they can only be pre-conceived in respect to time i.e. before the event it was pre-conceived and not the creation itself. The point Advaita makes, imho, is that it points out that THAT which already exists must exist for any creation theory to arise, including the sensation of time. i.e. “This world is not a creation of God but is a superimposition of God in that God remains substratum of this universe.”. We cannot negate that which we are unless we consider ourselves to be (in)dependent on our body, because the body-mind has a limitation relative (and seen to be independent) to universal existence. Taking oneself as the body-mind-intellect is precisely that which keeps us from missing what Vedanta claims as being truth.


    Quote Originally Posted by nirotu View Post
    On one side, a community of scientists and philosophers (theists) who believed God’s hand in creation right down to the last step in that everything behaves as if it was programmed from the beginning. Behind all this programming, there is a programmer who acted with infinite intelligence, craftsmanship and perfection.
    Could we say this group of people begin with the immeasurable i.e. that from which the big bang came. They accept there must be a substratum for any big-bang or activity. However they may limit themselves professional as scientists to measuring the measurable.

    Quote Originally Posted by nirotu View Post
    On the other side, a community of scientists (atheists) and philosophers who did not believe in God’s hand in creation. They believed this world somehow Emanated (??) and continues to exist because of its own inherent power never needing any external force to keep it functioning. Advaita also holds this Principle that the God as the creator of this universe is only “incidental (tatasthalakśan), which to me, does not constitute the “essential attribute of God” and, therefore, does not do any justice to creator God.
    Could we say that this group of people begin with the measurable i.e the material universe. That which came from the big bang. They draw the limit on that which they cannot measure i.e. the non-material and say it is not necessary or believable. Everything which is immeasurable is not real for them. This limits them to materialism, even if at the microscopic level.

    The point being that both groups may have different starting points, but they are still measuring THAT.

    Quote Originally Posted by nirotu View Post
    In doing so, Advaita Vedanta deprives God of “creatorship”.
    Advaita sets out to explain how variation and multiplicity can be experienced by us based on the presupposition that truth i.e. God, does not and cannot change. God cannot change because that which changes presumes that it is not eternal and the non-eternal cannot be true. All things require a substratum in order for change to be possible. That substratum in Santana Dharma is God, what ever the sect. It doesn’t negate creatorship but rather tries to explain how change (superimposition) can occur in the changeless (God, Brahman) from your and my perspective.
    Last edited by Onkara; 21 January 2010 at 04:15 AM.

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