Worlds first anti-war activist was burnt alive by brahmins

Amen to that.

 

Yeah man, fundemantalism and literal always follow every word of scripture tripping happens in all religions and is just as mayic as the forces of materialism, racisim, nationalism and so on...

It's like can't we acknowledge ancient wisdom without defending every line?

Can't we acknowledge ancient wisdom and find symbolism sometimes and not always interpret it literal?

Can't we acknowledge ancient wisdom... and gasp... say that perhaps parts are inaccurate or wrong?

Can't we acknowledge ancient wisdom, and propose some of our own, rely on an INNER transedant authority rather then an external one?

Can't we acknowledge ancient wisdom, and also learn from modern science, modern mystics and philosophers, and not just stick to one ancient text for are absolute answers?

The answers is... YES! YES! for all those.


It is a dis-service to ancient wisdom to be a fundemantlist... whether it be hindu or christian or whatever.... these people just come off as sticklers... Fudenmenatlism seperates, confuses and enslaves man to words. It is maya.

 

Ganja,

No disagreement here about fundamentalism and literalism...they are indeed maya....annoying fundie "sticklers" are the very least offensive product of these attitudes.

However: Shastra, in the Vedic sense, is accepted as God-given and is the source for written and proven confirmation of truth, and the words in which to convey it to others without manufacturing religions or processes of self-realization.

Advaita and dvaita philosophies and teachers interpret shastra somewhat differently but sanatana-dharma is the basis for both.

In the spiritual instruction I've received, the process is to verify personal realization with guru, sadhus...in this sense, persons more spiritually advanced, and shastra.

 

I'm in agreement here Prince. There is an idea I picked up on from an essay of Aldous Huxley's where he talks about two approaches 'critical and non-critical acceptance of culture'
I think we need to be critical, otherwise, if we just accept evertything non-critically, all we'll ever do is repeat the same old mistakes of the past. Tied to believing the same old 'fairy tales' are historical fact. (not that I have anything against fairy tales - they can be very illuminating)
With most ancient writings, scriptures etc I think a ceratin amount can be accepted, but there is much we have to reject.

 

I'm not sure Mahabarata is shastra - not sure though about that.
Myself I think it's on a level with the Greek myths. There's a lot of meaning and truth in there, but it can't be taken literally.

 

I've come to the conclusion that what is used actively as shastra is a matter of very wide variety...Speaking from an ISCKON perspective, Bhagavad Gita (part of Mahabharata), Srimad-Bhagavatam, and Chaitanya Charitamrita are the principal scriptures in use. Mahabharata is referred to in ISKCON but not so much, it's considered scripture but more in the way of being an epic story that contains concentrated spiritual passages.

For all scriptures, literal accuracy is in the eye of the beholder.

 

delete duplicate

 

delete duplicate

 

delete duplicate...grrrrr.

 

You got to tune in what is... and get it all the wisdom seeing the total unity of mysticism, science, experience and so on, understand it all through grokking or merging with the one consciousness... through one pointedness of mind true tuning because possible, scripture can guide, scripture reading is a type of yoga, but all form must be let go, to be all form to be the formless... to be beyond all such disctinctions into THE ONE, and beyond all conceptual thought patterns into ISNESS

 

This demonsration was at ground zero !!!

So jedi are you going to burn these guys next ?

 

Bhaskar a war is a war there is no thing called ethics in war....

9 out of 10 times war is murder in uniform that is what the Mahabharata was a tale of glorified genocide carried out in the name of dharma in which the the lower classes/castes suffered , fought and died in wars fought on the whims and fancies of the arrogant upper classes/castes

Every warrior claims that he does not want to fight a war but it is circumstances that give him no other choice even george bush is mouthing this same lame reason even today.

They might have been given a choice to leave and I am sure that many wanted to leave but the upper caste kshatriya's had glorified war and the men were under emotional duress and their rational thought processes failed to funtion efficiently and hence they lost their lives.

Morever yudhistra lost his kingdom while gambling
that wretch even gambled his wife away

Now the nature of gambling is to cheat if shakuni mama cheats yuddhistra
it is the nature of the game.... are you suprised ?

There is a saying if you are not cheating then you are not trying hard to win....thats what shakuni mama did ....

That is why one needs to stay away from gambling.........

If tommorow I go to las vegas and bet my entire kingdom in one of the thousands of casios(all of which is rigged) and then declare war day after, claiming I have been cheated it wouldn't exactly be brilliant on my part or would it ?

And then to nuke the casino to get my kingdom like
how it was done in the mahabharata would just be plain crazy
something only dubya would be capable of doing today.....

 

Well, I would say lock them up if they go in front of the white house and Yell and Scream "Islam will Reign supreme, down america down!". If they go out there and protest: "Stop this unnecessary war" , "Islam is not terrorism" or something like that then thats okay. It is also okay if they say "We are being terrorists if we don't stop this war" or something like that... but everything has its limits.

 

Mr. Halfahippie, we are in a world of cheating lying and treachery, that is the nature of this world, therefore we have wars. If everyone agreed to be noble, then there would be no wars, but usually it is only one group or both groups do not listen, then a war is necessary and it is also necessary for the more thoughtful and righeous group to win.

 

Also, you are looking at this from the human perspective, but that will only give you a distorted picture. Why? because the people in mahabharat like Yuddhistara are devotees of God, they are playing out a lila and one of the lessons that vyasa wants us to learn is that even a completely righteous person like yuddhistara can make mistakes and can degrade himself to selling his own wife to win a gambling game. It is the attraction to the game, his addiction to it that leads to his downfall and he becomes a slave to his senses in that brief period of time.

 

BTW Carvaka's observations were right the Yajur veda does contain meaningless rituals meant to enrich the brahmins
Many rituals involved the donation of land, cows,wealth to the brahmins.

 

Again, Brahmins are important in that they would send agni to bring rain. The entire society depended on it and they used to perform the rituals. Besides the donations were that of rice, which the brahmins would go begging for, brahmins would teach puranas and they would get whatever the receiver gave them, even if it is a leaf. Again , you are looking everything in today's context , which makes you narrow minded.

 

I think at the end of the day we all are nothing more than glorified monkeys

 

Yeah that means they preyed on superstition and when the great saint Carvaka dared to question their authority they planned ,schemed and suceeded in getting him burnt....
This ensured they could keep the the masses under control for many many more centuries.....

Its the same with priests everywhere from the south americas where the priests had dissenting people sacrificed to the sun god to the priestly jews who put Jesus christ up there on the cross for all of us.....

 

Dear Half A hippie,
You are obviously not free of your delusions, take care.