Nirvana/God

Thanks guys.........I think I understand. I guess the Hindu deities were created with the Divine in mind, therefore they best emulate His qualities. Very good. Peace!

 

Loves to Blake and Bhaskar for their words.

Grouve on, dudes...

 

The krishna flute plays this buddha's mantra, "Om Mani Padme Hum"

 

You see you are trying to do everything at a time when you really don't have to!- So you should try to pick a path and stick to it. If you want to worship shiva, that is the path of devotion, if you want to see God through knowledge then that is the jnana path- ie: seeing the world as unreal etc. You see, you have certain paths to God, it is not that easy to follow everything at a time.
The path of devotion is much like the path of knowledge, but you try to develop a personal relationship with God. For instance, when worshipping shiva, you can be in a shanta bhava- just simply loving him, and finally you will get to know God, He will reveal himself to you in due course of time.

If you want to follow the path of Jnana , then read the scriptures like yoga vashista etc. and try to mitigate your vasanas, try to destroy the ego with in and try to control your mind in a fixed position and do whatever your guru or gurus that tread the path of jnana advise you to do.

But you can't do everything at once, that will just confuse you, because it is not natural!- if you are calling yourself "brahman" then how can you call something that you worship at the sametime as "brahman" , then how can you destroy the ego? you can't , it is not possible.
So always try to follow one path and stick to it until the end.

 

You see , we need to develop single pointedness, you can't always live in doubt. So follow something and stick to it.

 

Yay! While the Divine Mother's voice sings Mohammed's prayer from the Christ heart...so that the Krishna flute plays that Buddha's song....!

 

It's quite possible to follow both the bhakti and jnana paths at the same time. Far from being incompatible, the two are complimentary. However, I agree with authorities like Sri Ramakrishna that bhakti is the easier path for most people to begin with at least.
If through bhakti you get a glimpse of the Atman, that is jnana.
I'd just add that a person living in the west is not going to find it easy to connect with a guru teaching jnana, at least a living one.

 

i'm a smrogasborger (one who mixes and matches many flavors of spirituality) and the secret is, just like a great chef or bartender, knowing how to mix and match the ingredients to come up with a great recipe or concoction

like worship like... spirit worships/loves spirit... i don't see the problem in Brahman (God) loving and worshipping Itself

 

Don't fucking crosspost.

 

I don't know BBB, I tried it, I couldn't understand how one who tries to adore himself and respect himself as the all mighty loses his ego in the first place. Now after he loses his ego, then okay , you have realized the brahman aspect of God and you don't have to do much, but really - with out losing one's ego, one cannot say he is brahman at the same time and worship God, that will result in alot of twisted ideas like molly here thinks she should worship herself or spirits and other things. This is not what hinduism is about , neither is this the proper way to do anything. This type of 'spirit' worship and Ghost worship or worship of oneself is something that is termed tamasic. It leads one deeper into ignorance.

 

There is a danger of twisting everything to suit yourself. If you don't see that as a danger, then there is no point in discussing this further.

 

i know the danger signs that one may be incorrectly mixing the ingredients is that the stool becomes liquidy and so far my stools are firm and solid

 

If a person thinks the surface ego is Brahman then clearly they are under an illusion. It is necessary to uncover the Atman within. The process of jnana yoga is one way to do this, bhakti is another. Or one can follow both.
You're right though to be suspicious of anyone who says they are God themself.

If you want to gain an understanding of how the two yogas relate to each other, read Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita.

 

Brahmarpanam brahma havihi brahmagnau brahman ahutam
brahmaiva tena gantavyam brahma karma samadhina.

Brahman is the act of offering (or the spoon), brahman is that which is offered, brahman is the fire into which it is offered, brahman is the one who offers. Brahman is that which is attained by him who sees brahman in all (also translated as "The offering goes to brahman alone, in order to do the work of brahman).

Jnana and bhakti are not separate at all. All great bhaktas were jnanis and all great jnanis had deep and abiding bhakti. Shankara is a prime example. He wrote the shiva bhujangam, but he also wrote chidananda roopa shivoham shivoham (I am Shiva, I am pure, my form is knowledge and bliss). Puranas have hundreds of examples - Sutikshana, Agasthya, Vishwamitra, Vashishta, all great jnanis and bhaktas at once. Ramana maharshi was such a great devotee, as was Ramakrishna.
And devotees like Tulsidasji and Kabir and Meera were great jnanis. Even a cursory look at the Tulsi Ramayana will expose the wealth of vedanta ouched in the poets soft imagery - which he himself explains in his introductory verses.

The path of bhakti is not different form the path of jnana, for to know God is to love God.

 

words words words - only words differ - doens't matter what you choose - essence remains.

 

Perhaps then you can tell us, without words, what is essence and in what sense it remains?

 

This is a quote from a letter of Sri Krishnaprem. I think it relates to the Nirvana/God question, and also the difference between various positions which have been discussed here recently:


“I”

Buddhists affirm that there is no such thing as “I”, while Shankara said just the opposite, namely that there is nothing here except the “I”, the Atman. Both positions paradoxically enough, come to the same thing – the “I” is negatived.
The Vaishnavas, however, say that the “I” should not be annihilated, and so say Sri Aurobindo and the Christians. The Vaishnava attitude of dasoham puts the “I” in its correct place
In the game of chess, if I move the queen and take one of the pieces it is preposterous for the queen to imagine that she is the instrument in killing the other piece. My intention in killing the other piece may be quite something else.
In the story of Govardhan (Krishna’s lifting of Govardhan hill), Indra, the ego, tries to submerge Vraja bhumi in a deluge. The Vraja vasis, representing the communal non-egoistic life, go to Krishna who protects them under Govardhan, representing the Divine Consciousness. Indra then comes begging for forgiveness. Krishna does not punish him, but puts him in his own place, which means that the “I” has to play its part in the total scheme.

 

i'm not telling no truth here, that's what i'm saying - i'm just using words.

words are perspectives, and perspectives is 1 part of a whole - but not the whole itself. you can talk about gods and all that jazz - you can even speak out 'OM' ... but that doesn't mean the words is what it stands for nor that the one speaken it undertsands what is being said.

i just base this on an experience i had where my ego dissolved - and i had no more thoughts - and spoke no more words. cause every words i would have spoken - would never be as true - as being present in itself.

but that moment is gone - so - don't mind my words - they are all just my personal illusion

 

Yes - we have to go beyond words, there's no doubt about that.

But if we want to communicate and discuss with each other, then we have no alternative but to use them.
Words too have their part to play in the totality of things.

 

Srila Prabhupada made it very simple...spiritual life starts with Krishna-bhakti, and Krishna-bhakti continues eternally. At realization of the Brahman aspect of God, the individual jiva is actually liberated from material existence, but, because the jiva is an eternal and complete individual, there will always be a dormant desire for activity... if the jiva simply remains inactive in the unmanifest Brahman state it can again become attracted to the material world. Therefore, by beginning spiritual life with activities of bhakti that are focused on Krishna rather than Brahman realization, bhakti as eternal nature is automatically attained, and Brahman realization occurs naturally as a byproduct of the activities of bhakti. Bhakti truly becomes pure at the point of liberation, because material desires are no longer manifest.