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Re: superstitions
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Subject: Re: superstitions
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From: manish@cadence.com (Manish Tandon)
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Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 14:21:55 GMT
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Apparently-To: alt-hindu@uunet.uu.net
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Newsgroups: alt.hindu
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Organization: Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
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Sender: news@cadence.com
susarla@growler.owlnet.rice.edu (H. Krishna Susarla) wrote:
|> Chirag Randeria (esccd@daisy.egr.uh.edu) wrote:
|> : hey people, Help me. I'm trying to write a paper on superstitions in
|> : hinduism, and in the Indian culture. I would appreciate it if anybody out
|> : there will mail me a list of superstitions that they are aware of.
|>
|> One interesting superstition prevalent in Hindu society is that God
|> does not exist/or is not personal, and that you can "interpret"
|> the scriptures any old way you want and still expect to achieve
|> self-realization.
|>
|> -- Krishna
That's a good one.
I've been trying to fight it here for quite some time.
Within the Vedic society, Shankaracharya has been one of the most prominent
persons who promoted the impersonal (mayavadi) view, which was based upon
his obvious misinterpretation of the crystal clear Brahma-sutras. Actually,
the Brahma-sutras are so clear that they dont need any interpretation,
therefore any interpretation is misinterpretation.
Amazingly, this is the same Shankaracharya who said:
bhaja govindam bhaja gOvindam bhaja gOvindam mUdamathE
"Worship Govinda, worship Govinda, Worship Govinda, foolish one!"
and
"I desire to be in Vrindavana so that I may sit on the
bank of Yamuna and pass each long day of my life in the
twinkling of an eye, meditating on Lord Krishna."
--Abhilasastaka
Actually, Shankaracharya was very clear in his mind and so he always
praised the path of bhakti as the best, but he had to counter the
more agnostic views of soonyavad propogated by Buddha. Unfortunately,
the later followers of Shankaracharya blindly got attached to the other
half of his teachings, almost completely missing bhakti, and some of
them like the Chinmaya mission to this date continue to miguide and be
misguided.
Dont jump to flames here, if you think you do not agree with this, 1). You
could/should have replied to my posting (my letters to the Chinmaya mission)
on various groups, inc alt.hindu; 2). You can still do it (its still on
soc.culture.eastern)!
Besides that, Buddha rejected the Vedic scriptures and promoted soonyavad.
Since soonyavad says everything=>nothing, it is not even worth calling a
philosophy.
And worse, atheists like Vivekananda in the recent times promoted completly
ignorant views (a sort of cross between mayavad and soonyavad) covered with
flowery language of Universal Consciousness and what not. These are really
the ones who misguide the ignorant masses that you can use your own whims
and pranks and realize that you yourself are God. These idiots dont even
understand that the very idea of God turns meaningless as soon as one thinks
there is more than one Supreme, because if so, neither would be Supreme.
Moreover, vedic scriptures descrive Bhagavan as the Absolute Truth, and
everything cannot be Absolute Truth. The fact that Bhagavan has form is
only an evidence of Omnipotence because if He didn't have a form, He wouldn't
be omnipotent. Being simultaneously infinite (unbound) and infinitestimal
(bound) displays the completeness of the Absolute Truth.
