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Re: Move over acharyas ...
On Thu, 18 Jan 1996 15:53:06 -0500 (EST), Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian
<rbalasub@ecn.purdue.edu> wrote:
>kstuart@snowcrest.net (Ken Stuart) wrote:
>>On Sun, 14 Jan 1996 12:41:08 +0000, HKS wrote:
>>
>>>1) Ken Stuart denies he is an advaitin. According to him, we are not all one
>>>now, but we do all become one in the end.
>>
>>I never said this.
>>
>>There is no "end".
>
>Did you not say "so just He and perishable jivas, no imperishable jivas". HKS
>may have been talking about this. Actually that's the same thing I thought too.
>So could you please explain what you actually meant by "just He and perishable
>jivas"?
When I say "I never said this", this doesn't mean that I think the
opposite of that.
I would not have said "we are not all one now, but we do all become
one in the end" for a variety of reasons, one of which I stated above,
namely that I don't believe in a beginning or an end. Yes, there are
cycles, but that is just a feature of reality.
Also, I would never had said "we" in a philosophical discussion, it's
a very imprecise term.
As far as what *you* thought I said :-), you only quoted the first
sentence, note that the next one begins with "Or". Here is the whole
thought again:
-----------------------------------begin quote---------------------
SO, no eternal jivatmas. Just He and perishable jivas.
OR you can say that there are eternal jivatmas -- but in that case,
they MUST also be "He".
And actually there is a perspective from which both of those are the
same.
For example, let's say one has an ice cube.
>From one perspective, the ice cube is perishable -- a short time at
room temperature and no more ice cube.
But from another perspective, the ice cube is still there, it has just
changed state from solid to liquid.
So, it depends what you mean by "ice cube".
----------------------------------------------end quote---------------
>>>the guru. For example, Ken tries to argue that his philosophy of the souls
>>>merging into one God is compatible with the philosophy of Gaudia
>>>Vaishnavism.
>>
>>I have never stated that souls merge into one God, so I could not have
>>commented that it was compatible with the philosophy of Gaudiya
>>Vaishnavism.
>
>Well, on one occasion you did quote Prabhupada which seemed to support your
>statements. Something about individual soul and supersoul and so on. So this
>might have been the cause for the confusion here.
"Something about" is pretty vague. :-)
I've never stated that souls merge into one God, because there's no
basis for this statement.
You can look at the situation as either (see my quote above):
- There are innumerable eternal fragments, all of which are "He".
- There is one He, and innumerable perishable soul-bodies,
In the first case, the fragments are already "He" so there is no point
to them merging. And their relationship is eternal, so there is no
merging, becoming, or any occurrences in time.
In the second case, the bodies cannot merge into He, because they are
perishable.
I don't believe in evolution either macrocosmically or
microcosmically. Self-realization, to me, is a better term than
liberation or enlightenment, because it is more accurate. The only
thing that has to happen is for one to realize that the Self (He)
resides in one's heart. The obstacles to this, are the samskaras,
the habitual tendencies and conditioning.
So there's no merging going on.
>>You have reason to follow your teachers and what they teach. This is
>>good and correct !
>>
>>Others do likewise, and have different viewpoints than you. Then we
>>get together and discuss it in this newsgroup.
>>
>>This is fine, and helps us understand what is meant by "God" and
>>"soul" and "jiva".
>
>God = soul = jiva :-).
Well this depends on what you mean by "God", "soul" and "jiva". :-)
Some seem to be arguing that "God" refers only to the Supreme
Personality of Godhead and not to His Eternal Fragments. This makes
no sense to me, because if they are not "God" then how could they then
be "HIS" fragments? The word "eternal" indicates that the
relationship never changes and has never changed. Thus if they are
"His" fragments, then they must be part of Him eternally as well.
The toes are just as much a part of the human body as the brain, even
though the role (aka dharma) of the toes is not to control the body,
which instead is the role of the brain.
"Soul" is the genre of music best exemplified by James Brown and
Marvin Gaye. :-)
I'm frankly not wholly sure about what people conceive that the word
"jiva" means. The usual definition that I see is "individual", which
itself is pretty vague. I think that people define "jiva" according
to their philosophy, which makes it rather circular.
Namaskar,
Ken
kstuart@snowcrest.net
"The ego arises from the mistaken notion that the light of consciousness
reflected in the intellect and coloured by objectively perceived phenomena
is the true nature of the Self. Thus, the personal ego falsely identifies
the Self with that which is not the Self and vice versa." - Mark Dyczkowski
References:
