What makes one set of folklore superior to other?

Society Religion & Philosophy
41

Very Interesting

Ok here is what you stated
"(avatars, sons and daughters of God) have died because they were human - people like Rama, Krishna, or any of the 7 other Avatars of Vishnu."

Son or daughter of god are also gods- i agree
if god is almighty then the gods(sons and daughters)are almighty too, all the godly powers should be contained by the gods like we human beings have kids with similar characteristics, if our parents breath oxygen, we breath oxygen as well?Am i right?
so if god can not die, how can avatars die?death is created by their father and why god wants their childeren to die like ordinary humans die?

Thank you for taking out time and answerng but sir i that answer was not satisfactory.Please be kind enough and answer the question once again.

You also said:
"If that realization happens, then what does it matter where Kali Mata is? Because then, everyone, including Jesus, Mohammed, Abraham, is truly God."

No they were not gods, not even close to be called gods because if they were gods they wouldn't have died.
Yes it does matter to senseable people to know where is godess, because if she wasn't a god then it wasn't a big deal if she died but if she is godess then we have to know where is she?

Andhera states:
"Kalimata is wherever Allah is now"

I would have agreed with you if Allah also came to this earth as a human being and met people of earth in person, but just by comparing kali mata and Allah, you are not answering the question dear. Allah is unseen, never appeared physicaly to the man kind but kali mata apeared, rode a tiger, and died??or disappeared??if died,then how can godess die, if disapeared then where?and why?was she mistreated by poeple and for protection she disapeared?how can a godess need protection from a being which he/she created him/herself?
I humbly request non-muslims to answer my questions and convince me that gods/godesses are actually what they are called, which is "GOD".

Masooma

42

Andhra : Who created you? If Kalimata, then where is she and why the created(you according to you) has outlived the creator(your kalimata) - just curious

43

[quote]
Originally posted by Masooma:
**Very Interesting

Son or daughter of god are also gods- i agree
if god is almighty then the gods(sons and daughters)are almighty too, all the godly powers should be contained by the gods like we human beings have kids with similar characteristics, if our parents breath oxygen, we breath oxygen as well?Am i right?
so if god can not die, how can avatars die?death is created by their father and why god wants their childeren to die like ordinary humans die?

No they were not gods, not even close to be called gods because if they were gods they wouldn't have died.
Yes it does matter to senseable people to know where is godess, because if she wasn't a god then it wasn't a big deal if she died but if she is godess then we have to know where is she?

**
[/quote]

There are two things here:
1) When God is incarnated into human form, the human form will die. That is what they are - human. Krishna explains this near the end of the Mahabharata - his actions are human because he is human, acting in a human world. When Krishna leaves this world, simply his body dies, but not his essential essence, which is Vishnu.

2) Do we actually die when our human forms die? That is a fundamental question that is answered by the Gita. The short answer is no - we don't die and go off to some heaven or hell for permanent bliss or damnation; instead, we continue to come back to this world, to gain more experiences, until we are able to break out of this cycle of birth and death. We break this cycle by attaining moksha/nirvana - a condition where we associate ourSelf with God.

Masooma, you say the prophets were not Gods because they died. I say they contained the same essence of God that you and I contain, and that only their physical bodies died. I do not say the prophets are more special than you or I, but that we are more than you may think we are. I then say that the avatars are then a bit more special than we are - they already contained the realized knowledge of God, and they did their work during their time on earth. When their work is done, they leave, yet their essence is not gone - it is a part of each of us, because Atman is Brahman.

44

Nirvana : associating with Kalimata...I'm confused, does that mean that when you achieve nirvana, you become equal to Kalimata or you can, so to speak, hang around in Kalimata's company since now you are an equal. Please untangle me through your explanations..

45

[quote]
Originally posted by zman:
Andhra : Who created you? If Kalimata, then where is she and why the created(you according to you) has outlived the creator(your kalimata) - just curious
[/quote]

zman, excellent, reminds me logic of Bertrad Russel when he was 7 years old. Even if u catch up with Russell at 70, good performance.

Russell was told by his parents that there is god and god created everything. He asked why u need god. His parents said we need god because everything has creator. He said, well then god should have creator, and god's creator should have creator and creator of god's creator should have creator and so on. But is god does not need creator and stand on its own, even world does not need creator and stand on its own. Thus we dont need god.

46

Ullu, you never fail to remain true to you nick. God created Ullu's too you know, an ullu that flies and an ullu that posts on this forum(and I point my finger at you, Ullu).

Answer my queries else SHUT UP.

[This message has been edited by zman (edited August 15, 2000).]

47

[quote]
Originally posted by zman:
Nirvana : associating with Kalimata...I'm confused, does that mean that when you achieve nirvana, you become equal to Kalimata or you can, so to speak, hang around in Kalimata's company since now you are an equal. Please untangle me through your explanations..
[/quote]

Think of moksha/nirvana as more of a melding into the vast ocean of Brahman. "Hanging" with Kalimata is not what your trying to achieve here. Instead, I think you are confusing Kalimata - a certain abstraction of the essence called Brahman, with Brahman itself.

Kalimata, abstracted as destructive energy, then, becomes an allegory to explain how the material world goes back into energy (E=mc^2), or, in more spiritual terms, how to turn the manifest back into the unmanifest.

48

I thought u would thank me that u reminded me of Russel, albeit when 7 yr. old. It is never early to be wise for great thinkers like Russel and for u it is never late to be wise either.

As far as Kalimata is concerned, astrofan knows all about her. So he will tell you. I just thought of telling u a connected story.

49

Ullu

I thought u would thank me that u reminded me of Russel, albeit when 7 yr. old. It is never early to be wise for great thinkers like Russel and for u it is never late to be wise either.<<

Thanks for the great post. Unfortunately there are very few truly wise people in this world.

50

[quote]
Originally posted by ullu:
*I thought u would thank me that u reminded me of Russel, albeit when 7 yr. old. It is never early to be wise for great thinkers like Russel and for u it is never late to be wise either.
*
[/quote]

The whole idea of creation seems to be a major sticking point here. Though Hinduism has many traditions that cover various ideas on creation (what exactly existed before creation is a great topic of debate, assuming of course that you consider the world to be "created"), it's not the focus of our spirituality. Rather, it's a where are we now, and where are we going type thing. Debate it, reflect on it, debate some more. Eventually, each of us comes to our own conclusions.

[This message has been edited by astrosfan (edited August 15, 2000).]

51

"1) When God is incarnated into human form, the human form will die. That is what they are - human. Krishna explains this near the end of the Mahabharata - his actions are human because he is human, acting in a human world. When Krishna leaves this world, simply his body dies, but not his essential essence, which is Vishnu."

-god neend to get into human body to preach human beings?god needs to live like a human being, for example, breath oxygen, drink water,gods heart beats and stops when he/she dies?Dear what is the difference between human beings and god then?In your previous post you very clearly stated that god and godesses are sons and daughters of god,and my question was how come the son and daughters of god look soo much like human beings and they die as well?And if you say "simply his body dies" if body dies, why did it die in the first place??why so anxious to feel the pain of death like human beings, god is the creator of death himself,therefore how come death overcomes god?death makes god disappear from this world and live ina spritual being?not because god/godesses wanted to but beacuse they died and spiritual being is what is left?but then why are they gods?why?if they couldn't overcome death, we shouldn't pray to those gods for the wellness of our relatives because what if they can't make themselves run away from death, how can they stop death from taking our beloved onse?

"Do we actually die when our human forms die? we continue to come back to this world, to gain more experiences, until we are able to break out of this cycle of birth and death. We break this cycle by attaining moksha/nirvana - a condition where we associate ourSelf with God. "

So we continue coming back to this world untill we reach a condition where we assiciate ourself with god?so that means everyone will become a god one day?who will be left to worship us or gods will have their own life, childeren and problems to solve among ourselves?If we keep coming back on this world as hindusim teaches then there must be many other gods and godesses created after karishna left his body??so what about those gods, they deserve same respect don't they?if there are so many gods/godesses and all of them have similar characteristics as humans do, that means gods/godesses fight among themselves?If that was the case, there would have been a chaos in this world, one god would want to dominate the other and have more worshipers, now if you say "they don't have jealousy among themselves", i would say why do they look similar to human beings, die like human beings and then don't have one specific characteristic?

God is above all this, He doesn't need any son or daughter to help Him out, or carry His name, or act as a Representative on this earth because He is ever living, the Almighty,the creator of death and life,nothing can overcome Him and if anything can, He wont be GOD.

"Masooma, you say the prophets were not Gods because they died. I say they contained the same essence of God that you and I contain, and that only their physical bodies died. "

Prophets weren't gods because they couldn't overcome death which is the creation of God.
Yes God did put his light in each one of us because Adam(a.s) father of the mankind was created and God put his light in his body.When i say light, i don't mean His soul, light is the "Kindness","Forgiveness","Love"etc.
That is the light bestowed on us by Allah(GOD). I have seen, people get wrong impression when we use Allah instead of God, they say, we are talking about our God, but no, Allah is an arabic word for God which is an english word,so please don't think i'm trying to defend my God or anything like that. When i say Allah i mean God of christains, muslims and the whole mankind.

"they already contained the realized knowledge of God, and they did their work during their time on earth. When their work is done, they leave, yet their essence is not gone"

Why they already contained the knowledge of God when they were also born like human beings,they had relatives and felt pain if someone hurt their beloved one,just like us, if they weren't different at all,there wasn't anything special then.Yes they may have been very good men and women but considering them gods and godesses, we should think about it first,and open mindedly.There is a whole lot bigger meaning behind the word "GOD" and "GOOD" men/wome.

I will come back to this topic later
I GOT TO JET RIGHT NOW.

Masooma

P.S Rani, as far as i know, you are sikh and Guru nanak ji was neither a hindu nor a muslim right?Nor did he ever took sides, so i direct this question to you, why do you hate muslims?and never point out anything about hindusim?

52

Masooma,

You state:

"Yes God did put his light in each one of us because Adam(a.s) father of the mankind was created and God put his light in his body.When i say light, i don't mean His soul, light is the "Kindness","Forgiveness","Love"etc.

1) Could you clarify on this "LIGHT" that you refer to?

You state:
"they already contained the realized knowledge of God, and they did their work during their time on earth. When their work is done, they leave, yet their essence is not gone"

2) Is that "ESSENCE", you mention above, still with us?

53

[quote]
Originally posted by faceup:
**
You state:
"they already contained the realized knowledge of God, and they did their work during their time on earth. When their work is done, they leave, yet their essence is not gone"

2) Is that "ESSENCE", you mention above, still with us?**
[/quote]

That would actually be my quote. Yes, that essence is their Atman - their Self, that is also Brahman, and it with us, in us.

54

<<< Why does God need to get into human body to preach human beings? >>>

Has Allah ever spoken to you? If God has a message, it probably will not be coming from "on high", instead, it makes sense that a man would be a good vehicle to talk about the "Truth".

<<< Does God need to live like a human being, for example, breath oxygen, drink water? Does God's heart beats and stops when he/she dies >>>

When Vishnu incarnated as Krishna or Rama, Vishnu did not stop existing. Why is it that when those two characters' die, that Vishnu must necessarily die?

"Dear, what is the difference between human beings and God then?"

This is the crux. My answer is there is no difference, except that human beings are shrouded by ignorance of their true self, being lost in the manifest world, perceiving differences in objects when they are none.

<<< In your previous post you very clearly stated that God and Godesses are sons and daughters of God, and my question was how come the son and daughters of god look so much like human beings and they die as well?>>>

This is not what I said, and if I implied it, then I was wrong. God as Brahman did not procreate to create the Gods/Devas. Krishna and Rama, avatars (reincarnations) of Vishnu, were not sons of Vishnu - they were sons of humans (Devaki and Vasudeva for the former, Dasaratha and Kaushalya for the latter). Humans see what they want from the Devas - it is a matter of perception.

<<< And if you say "simply his body dies" if body dies, why did it die in the first place >>>

Bodies tend to die. That is their nature, no?

<<< why so anxious to feel the pain of death like human beings, God is the creator of death himself,therefore how come death overcomes God? >>>

When a man attains moksha, his body is useless to him. Death is but a formality. For the avatars, it is the same - death is but a formality to get from the manifest to the unmanifest. You speak of Death as pain. For the realized Yogi, death is of no consequence, since he has realized that his spirit has merged with God, and he has attained infinite being-knowledge-bliss (sat-chit-ananda)

<<< Death makes God disappear from this world and live in a spritual being?>>>

If you want to picture it that, sure.

<<< Not because God/Godesses wanted to but because they died and spiritual being is what is left? >>>

This "being" is also what was there to start with.

"But then why are they Gods? Why? If they couldn't overcome death, we shouldn't pray to those gods for the wellness of our relatives because what if they can't make themselves run away from death, how can they stop death from taking our beloved onse?>>>

You speak as if death is the endgame, a checkmate of life, so to speak. This is not the Hindu view - death is but a phase, a way to get from here to there. Death is a shedding of a manifest body, not the end of an existence.

<<>>

Yes.

<<< So that means everyone will become a god one day?>>>

No, we merge with God, not become a God. You will not see anyone praying to the deity known as Astrosfan anytime. But, yes, it will happen to everyone (in the Hindu view).

<<>>

This is an odd question - why does a God have to be worshipped?

Remember, once sat-chit-anand is attained, there are no problems to solve, no petty worldly matters to attend to, no need for worship or to be worshipped. Being-Knowledge-Bliss, that's all you need.

Time in infinite in Hinduism, containing vast amounts of cycles. The cosmos is built and destroyed over and over again.

<<>>

Yes, people have attained Moksha since the time of Krishna. Ramakrishna is one such person lived in the 1800's and was the guru for Swami Vivekananda.

<<>>

You are confusing the Gods/Devas - who are aspects of nature - with the process of Moksha, which is a God-Realization.

<<>>

This is part of the Hindu mythology, yes. The fight is Good vs Evil. Take from it what you will.

<<>>

Why exactly is that? Does a God/Deva necessarily need to be on this ego trip? Hindu mythology is not about a single God/Deva versus other single Gods/Devas, it is about Good vs Evil, the fight of those on the side of dharma vs those on the side of adharma.

<<<, now if you say "they don't have jealousy among themselves" i would say why do they look similar to human beings, die like human beings and then don't have one specific characteristic? >>>

The Gods/Devas don't die. Their bodily manifestations do, assuming they are incarnated in the real world. Why do they look similar to humans? Humans are drawing them, humans are visualizing them, humans are experiencing them - what do you want the Gods/Devas to look like? What characteristic do you want?

<<< God is above all this, He doesn't need any son or daughter to help Him out, or carry His name, or act as a Representative on this earth because He is ever living, the Almighty,the creator of death and life,nothing can overcome Him and if anything can, He won't be GOD. >>>

You are attaching way too much personality to God as Brahman. Think more in terms of "The Force" from Star Wars.

<<< Prophets weren't gods because they couldn't overcome death which is the creation of God. >>>

Only their bodies died, from the Hindu standpoint. The Atman of the prophets did not die.

<<< Yes God did put his light in each one of us because Adam(a.s) father of the mankind was created and God put his light in his body.When i say light, i don't mean His soul, light is the "Kindness", "Forgiveness", "Love" etc.
That is the light bestowed on us by Allah(GOD). I have seen, people get wrong impression when we use Allah instead of God, they say, we are talking about our God, but no, Allah is an arabic word for God which is an english word, so please don't think i'm trying to defend my God or anything like that. When i say Allah i mean God of christains, muslims and the whole mankind.>>>

I won't disagree with your belief. You say Allah bestowed the Light. I say the Light was there to begin with.

<<< Why they already contained the knowledge of God when they were also born like human beings,they had relatives and felt pain if someone hurt their beloved one,just like us, if they weren't different at all,there wasn't anything special then.Yes they may have been very good men and women but considering them gods and godesses, we should think about it first,and open mindedly.There is a whole lot bigger meaning behind the word "GOD" and "GOOD" men/women.>>>

of course there is. As Hinduism sees life as experential (we need to experience life to learn about it), there is no reason for God to make snap judgments - he is here to help us facilitate us along our own paths. As Krishna says himself, he could have snapped his fingers and made the world all peachy-keen, but he didn't do that - it's not the way of the world. While you see no point in God incarnating into the physical world if that incarnation is to feel pain - I see it differently. If humanity is moving along the path of adharma, Hinduism says that a God can reincarnate himself to right the ship. Since we disagree on the duality of God/humanity, we aren't gonna be able to see eye to eye on this. If you want more information on God/humanity dualism in Hinduism, you need to read the work of Ramanuja.

55

1) astrosfan,

So ESSENCE is consciousness/soul and greater Essence or consciousness is Nirvana! Is this right?

2) Originally posted by zman:
"Nirvana : associating with Kalimata...I'm confused, does that mean that when you achieve nirvana, you become equal to Kalimata or you can, so to speak, hang around in Kalimata's company since now you are an equal. Please untangle me through your explanations.."

Nirvana is called GNOSIS in Sufism and is the same state as 'Insan-e-kamil' or 'perfect man' as explained in Sufism. This is achieved thru Gnosis or union of one's self/consciousness with the LIGHT of God.

3) "Adam(a.s) father of the mankind was created and God put his light in his body."

This LIGHT was also in other prophets, for example, prophets Abraham, Muhammed(s)and is not to be confused with soul. LIGHT is of Allah and is also called Noor - according to sufism & ismailism.

Astro - does this tie in with what you're saying? Sorry, if this is a repeat for you.

56

[quote]
Originally posted by faceup:
** 1) astrosfan,

So ESSENCE is consciousness/soul and greater Essence or consciousness is Nirvana! Is this right? **
[/quote]

More or less, yep. Although, I would tweak this a bit, and say that greater Essence is Brahman (God), and that when a person is able to associate personal consciousness/soul with Brahman, he is in a state of Nirvana.

A classic metaphor goes like this: There is a vast amount of space that surrounds us. There is space in the sky, in the cosmos. There is space between the TV and the sofa in the living room. Space surrounds us, and actually in us (something like 99% of an atom is empty space). Now, look at the coffee cup on your desk. The cup defines a volume. Inside that volume is space. Outside of that volume is space (outside of that cup). However, the space inside the cup is the same as the space outside the cup - only the boundary of the cup makes us think that the two spaces are somewhat different. The space within is the same as the space outside. Similarly, our body-mind complex define a volume that we define as Atman. Outside of the body, we say that Brahman is everywhere. The logical leap, then, is that the Atman within is the same as the Brahman on the outside.

The following somewhat surpasses my knowledge of philosophical Islam/Sufism, but I'm intrigued -

[quote]
Originally posted by faceup:
**
Nirvana is called GNOSIS in Sufism and is the same state as 'Insan-e-kamil' or 'perfect man' as explained in Sufism. This is achieved thru Gnosis or union of one's self/consciousness with the LIGHT of God.**
[/quote]

This sounds amazingly similar to what I'm saying. Cool.

[quote]
Originally posted by faceup:
**
This LIGHT was also in other prophets, for example, prophets Abraham, Muhammed(s)and is not to be confused with soul. LIGHT is of Allah and is also called Noor - according to sufism & ismailism.

Astro - does this tie in with what you're saying? Sorry, if this is a repeat for you. **
[/quote]

Shoot, now I got a bit confused, maybe because I'm still thinking about what Masooma said.

Alright, there is where we have to start defining Hindu terms. Jiva is soul. Atman is that essence of our Self, that defines ourSelf. If one believes that the soul is what defines our Self, then the term is Jivatman. With your terminology - Jiva is an aspect of ourself that is not our body or mind. Atman is LIGHT. We all have this LIGHT, but the Realized Souls (propets, whatever) have understood this LIGHT. The rest of us have not, for various reasons, though we can work towards this understanding. If this is what you are saying, then yeah, it's a great tie-in.

57

thanks astrofan and faceup for your explanations.

58

Hey Faceup -

I think I have dwelled a bit too far into the philosophy known as Advaita Vedanta (non-dualism). Your Sufi explanation of GNOSIS and LIGHT sounds more similar to Dvaita Vedanata (dualism), which more clearly delineates the line between soul and God (as Brahman) - where the goal is to merge the two (soul and God), as opposed to realize that should already be merged. Vedanta includes some other schools of thought (pure non-dualism, qualified non-dualism), and I don't want to project my own philosophical beliefs to be representative of the whole of Hindu thought.

My guru is an advaitist, and always taught me that dvaita is a lower form of thought. Go figure. However, the classic battle lines of Advaita vs Dvaita were drawn at a time contemporary to Muhammed (according the British colonial views of the Hindu timeline. Current Indologists would of course disagree). On the side of Advaita was Shankarcharya, who espoused Vedanta at a time when Hinduism was turning into ritualism, and Buddhism was carrying the intellectual day. Shankarcharya, then, is responsible for revival in Hinduism. At odds with his Advaitism is both Ramanuja and Madhvacharya, who clearly see the separation of soul and God; this debate continues today. I have read much of Shankar's work, and I am currently about to start that of Ramanuja's. One of the reasons you may see Advaita over Dvaita is that Swami Vivekananda was great proponent of Advaita, and described that philosophy in the 1893 Parliament of World Religions, and wrote about it extensively in English and Hindi.

My views clearly do not encompass all schools of Hindu philosophy, but I have tried to inject a bit of philosophical Hinduism to this discussion, as I understand it.

59

Astro states:

"Your(faceup's) Sufi explanation of GNOSIS and LIGHT sounds more similar to Dvaita Vedanata (dualism), which more clearly delineates the line between soul and God (as Brahman) - where the goal is to merge the two (soul and God)"

That is precisely so or "clearly delineates the line between soul and God (as Brahman) - where the goal is to merge the two (soul and God)".

The aim in life is to achieve Gnosis or to become Insan-e-kamil. This is common belief amongst sufis & ismailis.

Re: LIGHT of God/Allah I shall post a new thread that will clarify readers' understanding of what LIGHT represents and what I mean when I say that Abraham & Muhammad(saws), for example, had this Light.

60

I have been reading these pages for a little while now and find that there has been nothing but insults towards our Hindu deity from the Muslim contributers. I would like to request to those people that they should try to refrain from statements which can hurt sentiments of people of other faiths. Just because you belive something is right, it does'nt automatically make all the other things wrong.

I come from a country where despite our different faiths and beliefs, we live in harmony. Yes there are occasional upheavels but mostly by fundamentalists from both sides.

I went to school in Gujrat (India), had many Muslim friends, they never insulted my faith and we Hindu boys never said anything bad about Islam. But I can assure you that the cubbards are full of skeletons in both religions, if you want to start digging up.

I live in UK and even here all the citizens have the same rights and also have the freedom to worship whoever they want. I have many Muslim friends here in UK also, they are all very easy going, some of them have been to the temple with me on my family functions and that did not make them Hindus and I have been to the mosques on many occasions and that does not make me a Muslim either.

My Muslim friends and I have no problem about respecting each other's religion and I hope that people like Masooma and Mundya on these pages can also learn to respect other people's faiths.

If we Hindus don't want to follow your religion and want to carry on with what we believe in, be it good or bad in your eyes, then please leave us alone to do what we want to do. I can't see why it should be any of your business.