Shaivism vs. Vaishnavism

hi Gooj! And Molly, your post up there totally hit the nail on the head (the one about emotion).

 

Hi Bhaskar..........

 

It requires study, reflecton, deep mananam and practice before the essence of teaching is understood.

 

Trouble is that emotions can be very deceptive. No doubt that many of the fundie type muslims have much emotion, enough to be ready to blow themselves up, but unfortumnately, they are also extrememly ignorant. Blind faith is the danger here. Once again, based not on personal experience, but conditioning. The same goes for most emotional types of religion.

 

true, gooj... and so we see in the life of chaitanya, ramakrishna and shankara, even though they had profoundly coherent advaitist perspectives on the nature of the self, bhakti... the devotion of their emotions flourished and overflowed their beings in the affections towards their chosen deity

and so the problem isn't the emotion but when the emotion is kept within the frame of the limited ego's perspective

 

Of course a balance of intellect is always needed.

 

Great thoughts...and you're right on; in many instances people can't even come to this point, because first they've got to establish that their way and scripture is the one and only right one.

 

But without ego - by which I mean here the sense of a separate existence - can there be emotion?

 

by limited ego's perspective i meant being blind to the validity of other's experience

 

Yes - that's a problem that causes all kinds of trouble - and I think that often, religions actually make it worse by claiming to be or posess the only valid truth. Thus devaluing the experience of anyone outside their limited circle.

On this topic, has anyone here heard of or read the work of R.D.Laing, the Scotts psychotherapist from the 60's ('The Divided Self' probably his best known book).
Laing began from a different perspective than mainstream psychotherapists by saying that the experience of his patients, many of whom were long term schizophrenics, was to be treated as as valid as anyone elses' experience,(including that of the therapist) rather than dismissed as hallucination or whatever, and quashed with medication. His approach was to accept the 'delusions' as real for that person, and work through it on that basis. He had notable success in helping many people.

That applies more to the 'mentally ill', but it's a fact that it extends to ordinary life too. Many people are ready, it seems, to deny validity to the experience of others - whether we're taliking about religion, meditation, drugs, or anything beyond the mundane. In Soviet Russia, people who didn't agree with the status quo were often labelled as mentally ill, as a way of both punishing them and indicating that their experience, and hence their views, were invalid.
One can find the same pattern operating in the case of some religions. If you don't agree with what they say you are either mad, ignorant, or just plain bad.

 

Good analysis, Bill.

Hardcore religious fundamentalism is a true mental illness in itself, I've concluded.

As far as drugs are concerned, I've done a lot of anti-drug preaching here but that's because since age 18 I've trod a path littered with the corpses of dead druggies, including my younger brother...and they're still dying, even in their 50's, from suicides and od's.

 

This is a can of worms I'm not eager to reopen here.
I too know of drug tragedies - but also know many long term users of soft drugs who are fine after many years.

All I was trying to say is that drug experiences are often regarded as in-valid by many people. To others - the Navaho Indians for example, they play a huge role in understanding reality.

 

Bill...I didn't mean to diss your statement about some drug experiences being valid...I've taken them a few times as well.

It's my kneejerk reaction to caution people about drugs because I have seen so much tragedy associated with their misuse or overuse.

Yes, it is a can of worms that doesn't need to be reopened.

 

Yes - I know where you're coming from Spook..again, as far as I'm concerned, you are as entitled as me to have your view on this.

 

What concerns me the most is spiritual seekers habitually relying on drugs...those insights can come with very heavy reactions...that's the basic reason I preach against them on this forum.

As far as the rest of it, they all ought to be 100% legal...except for super-destructive shit like crystal meth, crack, and similar...and taxed and sold like liquor. no more idiotic and fascist war on drugs, lots more $$$ for uncle sam.

If people want to kill themselves with drugs, it's their business, as long as they don't get in a car and drive under the influence...that's when it becomes the govt's business.

 

Yeah...I don't do anything but in my personal experience....stoned people are a lot easier to be with than drunk people...stoned people are just giggley and eat a lot. lol...

 

Obnoxious drunks are horrible, lots worse than laid-out stoners.

 

Drugs or Alcohol, both of them are bad for our health and ofcourse we need to avoid them.

 

Not all drugs are bad for the body. LSD for instance is entirely non-toxic. In my view, the reasons it is illegal are all political.

Other things like fatty foods are bad for the health, yet no one thinks of banning them. So is environmental pollution from cars.
And the self same politicos who won't trust us with cannabis are quite ready to send young people off to fight their wars for them - and of course, war is extremely bad for one's health. 'The evil whiskey drinking old men who run America' to quote William Burroughs.

 

BBB, when you say LSD is completely non toxic, you are referring to experimental results that show no adverse effects of LSD, that does not mean that there aren't any adverse effects. Science is constantly changing, what is true today may not be true tomorrow and just because they don't know about it , does not mean it doesn't exist, it may very well exist and show up in later experiments.
Many of the drugs are analogs of biological molecules that are to be released at appropriate times. It is very mechanical. For instance, cannabis attaches to receptors that are named "Cannabanoid" but really their true functions involve other things in the body.
. But don't you see BBB, messing with natural receptors will most likely create problems, addictions and other disgusting things. it is an unnatural way of activation/suppression for instance when one injects morphine into his body, because one is supposed to feel pain when he gets hurt, trying to inject oneself with morphine all the time does not solve the problem, it just creates a temporary escape (although I guess it makes sense why they use them in the hospitals- or else it is way too much pain to bear) , similarly, injecting oneself with cannabis may activate receptors used by natural chemicals like anandamide, but it is not natural and should not be there in your body. Same thing goes with Drinking , smoking , they are chemicals that create adverse effects and they do not belong in the body and should not be used.

From a spiritual perspective, it makes sense because one needs to understand the body is not his, it is God's therefore he needs to respect it as someone else's property.