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Re: God and Demigods-is Ganesha demigod?
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Subject: Re: God and Demigods-is Ganesha demigod?
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From: manish@cadence.com (Manish Tandon)
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Date: Tue, 20 Dec 1994 18:22:23 GMT
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Apparently-To: alt-hindu@uunet.uu.net
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From news@cadence.com Tue Dec 20 13: 16:08 1994
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Newsgroups: alt.hindu
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Organization: Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
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Sender: news@cadence.com
sadananda@anvil.nrl.navy.mil (K. Sadananda) wrote:
....
|> ...It is like the Bharata Mata declaring "I pervade the entire Bharat
|> in an unmanifested form". I am there in every piece of land in India,
|> and yet those forms alone are not me.
Thank you for this view. I hope the scholarly advaitans will make a note
here that just because Brahman is in every form doesn't mean that that's
all Brahman is (i.e. nirguna) and that the Saguna aspect (i.e. form) of
Brahman is somehow inferior or transitory or non-existent.
|> Krishna in fact declares that in whatever path you follow you reach
|> me only.
To prove that this is *wrong*, I quote from the Bhagavad Gita:
7.20 kamais tais tair hrta-jnanah prapadyante 'nya devatah
"Those whose intelligence has been stolen (hrta-jnanah) due to
lust (kamaih) surrender unto demigods (anya-devatah)***"
9.23 ye 'py anya-devata-bhakta yajante 'sraddhayanvitah
te 'pi mam eva kaunteya yajanty avidhi-purvakam
"Those who are devotees of demigods (anya-devata) and who worship
them with faith actually worship only Me, O son of Kunti, but
they do so in a wrong way (avidhi-purvakam)."
18.66 sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvam sarva-papebhyo moksayisyami ma sucah
"Abandon all varities of religion and just surrender unto Me.
I will deliver you from all sinful reactions, do not fear."
***and here is the explanation on why we translate 'anya-devata' as
"demigods" instead of "other gods" as one may normaly tend to think.
>>>>>
Lord Krishna tells in 10.2 'aham adir hi devanam' -- that "He is
the origin of all the devatas", and in 10.8 'aham sarvasya prabhavo...'
-- that "He is the origin of everything!", also Arjuna says in 10.15
'deva deva...' -- "Indeed you are the God of Gods", and in 11.38 'tvam
adi-deva' -- that "you are the origin of all Gods", and also in 11.38
'purusah puranah' that "He is the primeval Person", etc. which PROVES
beyond doubt that Krishna/Vishnu is infact the ONLY God and rest are
all demigods ie. subordinate to Him (Krishna).
>>>>>>
Now one may try to bring in outside quotes to prove otherwise, BUT,
a system of logic (BG here) has to be interpreted from within, unless
the system itself makes explicit reference to an outside source.
Otherwise, the act really turns into one of _validating_ the system as
opposed to _interpreting_ since then one may also bring in another
outside ref. which may contridict the very basis of the system or prove the
first outside ref. to be wrong.
If people are not ready to accept the authority of the BG, that's is there
problem and is a seperate issue, my point here is that interpreting
'anya-devatah' as "demigods" is perfectly legitimate from within the
system of logic that the BG establishes since it is consistent with
the rest of the inductions contained within it, i.e. the system remains
perfectly consistent/balanced with this inference included.
|> Bhagawan Ramana Maharshi answered this question beautifully when
|> someone asked whether this God has a form. He said if you think you
|> have a form then God can have too. If you donUt, then he is also
|> without.
This is a common misconception created by people who neither know
the scriptures nor understand philosophy.
Here is a simple explanation, a drunkard thinks that (s)he is say
5 feet away from a solid object so he swings his arm or feet and
breaks his bone because he actually was only say 1 ft. away.
So what do you do, do you accept reality that the drunkard was/is
1 ft. away from the object or the drunkards version of the state
of affairs that (s)he was five feet away from the object. In that
case, how do you explain the breaking of the bone?
The bottomline is that we have a form and that form is real and
physical. By thinking that we don't have a form doesn't change the
reality one bit, only that one who thinks so lives in illusion.
FYI, a modern counterpart of this is the bogus idea of Existential
Physics or Observer Created Reality, neither mainstream science nor
common sense accepts such hallucinatory theories.
|> When you think you have a form then you are limited by the form.
WRONG.
Sadanandaji, FYKI, form DOES NOT means something is limited.
Since the senses/abilities of us jivas are limited, we sometime confuse
ourself and others by saying that form implies a limit so God MUST be
formless in order to be limitless.
It is infact our shortcoming that we can only percieve limited forms
so we think all forms are limited.
The form of Lord is unlimited and yet it is a form! If you study the
'acintya bhedabheda tattva', you may understand this.
Otherwise, read the section in the Srimad Bhagvatam where Lord Krishna
showed the entire Universe including Himself and Mother Yashoda within
his mouth, even when Mother Yashoda was looking from outside in the
mouth of what an atheist will believe to be merely a young child.
and I quote again...
When we say something is infinite, we signify only that we are
not able to concieve the ends and bounds of the thing named.
- Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher
|> In principle any idol is as good as the other so long as the ideal
|> behind the idol is not lost.
Only a pagan calls the form of the Lord an 'idol'.
from The Oxford Dictionary:
idol: image as object of worship; false god;
I take strong exception to the use of word "idol" to describe the form
of the Lord by K. Sadananda and demand that he offer an appology. The word
"idol" is used by christians and muslims to deride the faith of Indians
and portray a wrong image.
For a devotee, the form of the Lord on the altar is not an idol. A devotee
see the Lord on the altar as the Lord, and realizes that out of his Supreme
benevolance, the Lord has accepted to reside in what appears to be a mere
statue (only to an atheist) in order to give an opportunity to His devotees
to serve Him.
|> This is the reason I believe that Bhakti without proper understanding
|> can lead to fanaticism.
And who is saying that??
After you call the form of the Lord an "idol", you still have the audacity
of telling others what bhakti is.
Hari Bol!
manish
