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Re: ARTICLE : Just say no to "Hinduism" (was Re: ARTICLE : On
Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <rbalasub@ecn.purdue.edu> wrote in article
<ghenDxH6vx.Gqw@netcom.com>...
> Srila Sri Sri H. Krishna Susarla, the same as Lord Krishna, also
miraculously,
> at the same time, different from Lord Krishna, tried to think and then
> proffered:
Hey that was actually a little bit funny this time. Keep it up, RB, I think
your sense of humor is improving!
> Oh, back to COM messages of Shri Vishveshvara Tirtha's speech, are we? Is
it
No, this is a transcript which was mailed to me by the folks at the Mayapur
temple who were there and actually heard him speak.
> the same Srila HKS who attacked Manish on srv for making the statement
that
> their was such a message on the COM bulletin board (or whatever? ) a few
months
> back? For the enlightenment of the srh readers: Manish said that he had
> received a COM message by e-mail with H.H's "speech". Upon which Srila
HKS
> berated Manish for not actually producing the message and claiming that
there
> had been no such message and also claimed Manish was lying. Now after a
hiatus
> the COM message has surfaced again. Why don't you post it for the
> enlightenment of all of us?
It's not a COM message. For your enlightenment, Manish is hardly a very
credible witness. For one thing, he has made many spurious claims like this
in the past without producing any evidence. He does this in an attempt to
justify his departure from ISKCON. Frankly, I don't mind that he does not
practice Gaudiya Vaishnavism anymore, but I find his attempts to villify
devotees who used to be his friends completely contemptible.
Secondly, Manish never claimed that the alleged COM message had
Vishveshvara Tiirtha's speech. What he did claim was that the alleged COM
message alleged that Vishvesvara Tiirtha declared Srila Prabhupada to be an
avatar of Brahma. This is why I say he is lying. According to Maadhva
doctrine, Brahma does not incarnate. As far as ISKCON devotees are
concerned, no one would say something so foolish as the above. It is true
that many Gaudiya Vaishnavas accept Srila Prabhupada as an empowered
personality from the spiritual world. There are predictions of this in the
Gaudiya literatures of a pure devotee who would descend and establish the
sankiirtana movement all over the world. However, Prabhupada is accepted by
Gaudiya Vaishnavas as an intimate devotee of Krishna in the mood of sakhya
bhaava. No one would who knows anything about Gaudiya Vaishnava philosophy
would say that he is an avatar of Brahma, which would indicate that his
mood was daasya bhaava. To say such a thing would almost be regarded as
slanderous.
> I wouldn't be surprised if such a message is doing the rounds in ISKCON.
After
Well, I have a COM account, and I see no such message anywhere. The idea of
accepting someone as an avatar of Brahma simply because someone said so
would be foolish at best.
> all books have come forth from this great "tradition" which
>
> 1. claims verses from the Krishna Upanishad which don't exist. In fact
the
> second chapter was quoted whereas there is no second chapter at all.
It does exist. Why do you think otherwise? Just because Motilal says so?
It was quoted in Sanaatana Gosvami's Hari-bhakti vilaasa. It may be that
this second chapter is considered to be a separate Upanishad by some, which
would make sense since it is all about the incarnations of Lord Balaraama.
However, to say that it does not exist would require knowledge of all the
Upanishads. Have you memorized all the Upanishads there are? No one on SRV
made that claim. All that was claimed was that the Upanishad could not be
found in Motilal's edition. That's hardly a basis for claiming its
nonexistence, since Motilal is not a Vedantin, and since there are
doubtless thousands of Upanishads which have been lost over the centuries
as almost any Vedantin will acknowledge.
> 2. quotes XYZ upanishad which is not present even in the Upanishad
samgarahaH,
> inspite of the fact that even upanishads like Allah Upanishad are to be
found
> in it.
No idea what this is referring to.
> so on and so forth.
And this is what you will do, if allowed to. I can't help but note that you
have moved this thread away from the original topic. Why is that?
Originally we were talking about the definition of Hinduism. But you want
to stop that discussion by posting garbage. It seems to me like you were
just waiting to burst out with all sorts of complaints. Being unable to
talk on philosophical matters, have you just been waiting all this time
since our last encounter to collect complaints from 3rd-rate witnesses? All
this just to waste SRH bandwith in an attempt to make me feel
uncomfortable? I pity you, Ramakrishnan. If you had at least used that time
to study some scholarly advaitic texts, we could have then had an
interesting, intelligent discussion. Instead, your saadhana seems to
consist of attacking others for imagined insults.
At least if you knew what you were talking about, your message would not
come off as dishonest. However, the fact is that you are simply taking
someone else's difference of opinion as a basis for some very strong
accusations. If someone disagrees with me on the authenticity of a
particular text, why do you necessarily think he is right? The fact is, you
don't know either way, but you are simply letting blind hatred of me guide
you.
And all the while, you are distracting us from the discussion we were
having, which was considerably more civil and thought-provoking then the
one we are having now.
> In fact outright lying is part and parcel of the books and literature
from
> this "sampradaya".
Using your rather faulty memory, you have posted half-truths about COM
messages based on the testimony of foul-mouthed and unreliable witnesses.
You have arbitrarily taken an opposite position on the authenticity of
certain scriptures, and then used this as a platform to call the other guy
a liar, even though you yourself have no way of knowing either way.
And now you have the gall to call a whole tradition dishonest?
Try to control your senses, Ramakrishnan. There are hundreds of thousands
of people reading this (many who are not Hindu), and your behavior is not
going to improve their perception of your religion. It behooves you to
maintain good on-line conduct at least, unless you want non-Hindus to think
your hot-headed and dishonest remarks to be acceptable forms of Hindu
dharma.
I have no use for your COM messages really, even if you do
> have one with the supposed "speech".
Why don't you just snail-mail Vishvesvhara Tiirtha yourself and ask him?
But you won't do that because you will then be proven wrong, and admitting
to me that you are wrong is something your false ego would never let you
do.
> Note: the above two lies emanated during a debate in srv and HPR exposed
them.
> Not very surprisingly the source of these lies on srv was Srila HKS
himself
> (supposedly taken from an "authorized" interpretation of the vedas
(sic)).
If I didn't know better, I'd say I was dealing with a Jai Maharaj clone...
> > Cute. Well, I will put Gaudiya logic up against your so-called logic
any
> > day of the week. If you are so confident in your abilities as a
logician,
> > why are you wasting time with slanderous remarks instead of talking
> > philosophy? The fact that you have to resort to slander is indeed
telling,
> > but I will give you the benefit of the doubt and consider any "logical"
> > proposals you would like to make.
>
> So that you can engage in your usual modulo N argument technique? People
who
> don't know what this fine art of argument is: Srila HKS has some
ridiculous
> objections to advaita based on fifth rate articles about it by
non-advaitins.
Well, I submitted some questions about advaita for my clarification and you
chose not to respond. Instead, you simply claimed that they were too
esoteric. If questions on the basic relationship of the jiiva and Brahamn
are too esoteric for your tradition to provide answers, then I submit that
your tradition is nothing more than blind sentiment if it requires people
to believe your philosophy even when they have doubts about it. If you were
so concerned that I was being misinformed, why didn't you correct me by
quoting from authentic advaitist texts? Perhaps because that would require
you to engage in intelligent discussion, when all you really want to do is
insult me. How deeply spiritual of you.
> The objections are numbered 0 to N-1. He'll start with 0 proceed to N-1
and
> before you know it he'll be back to the argument labelled 0. Then proceed
ad
> nauseam till the opponent throws up his hands gives up. Naah, I think
I'll pass.
Fascinating. You accuse me of being deficient in logic, and then when I
entice you into a real discussion, you back away. This is like the
proverbial "are you beating your wife" accusation. I am being given no
opportunity to prove you wrong, and that's the way you like it since you
only want to slander me.
For what it's worth, it has never been the case that you even proposed an
explanation for any of my objections, and thus I think it quite natural to
repeat them until satisfied. If you really are such a logician, then it
seems you should be able to propose an answer to some of my questions
rather than writing them off as beneath you. Who are you fooling
Ramakrishnan? The whole archives are available for everyone to see. You
only make yourself look bad when you claim the facts to be different from
what they are.
And I must repeat once again, that I am available at any time for a logical
discussion. If you were so confident in your abilities to defeat me, then
it seems curious why you would resort instead to personal attacks.
> > Let's see if you can put your money where your mouth is...
>
> I don't know where my money is. Atleast my mouth is not where my foot is,
Ahh, now this is quite humorous. Actually, I was going to say something
about this in regards to you. You see, it kind of gets back to what I was
saying before about you being motivated by a desire to slander me and an
inability to admit when you are wrong.
I distinctly remember a time when you used to mock Gaudiya Vaishnavas for
saying that Shankaraachaarya was an incarnation of Shiva. You remember that
time? You objected to the idea that Shankaraachaarya was an incarnation of
Shiva, and quoted some esoteric text (which contained no information on
such an incarnation) as your "proof." You then proceeded to make fun of the
Gaudiyas for this belief.
Then, miraculously, three things happened:
1) Vidya, on his advaita home page, conceded that some advaita traditions
do regard Shankaraachaarya as an avatar of Shiva
2) Anand Hudli, a Shankarite, posted some hymns on SRV from a disciple of
Shankaraachaarya in which the former declared the latter to be an
incarnation of Shiva.
and 3) Sankar Jayanarayana, another Shankarite, posted a letter by his
guru, who comes in paramparaa from Shankaraachaarya, stating his view that
Shankaraachaarya is an incarnation of Shiva
These three items are publicly available for your perusal, should you wish
to accuse me of fibbing. They are of course, in addition to the Padma
Puraana shloka which also very explicitly confirms this.
Now, since you were obviously proven wrong (at the very least, it should be
obvious that there is no reason to make fun of a tradition which holds this
belief), the least you could have done was apologize. But did you? Did you
ever post a message saying, "i'm sorry for my disrespectful behavior
towards your sampradaaya, you are perfectly justified in believing Shrii
Shankaraachaarya to be Shiva himslf?" No. No such message was ever received
on my news server.
Why can't you admit when you are wrong? Bhagavad-Giita 13.8 states that
humility (amaanitvam) is real knowledge. You know Bhagavad-Giita, don't
you? Your own Shankaraachaarya wrote one of the first extant commentaries
on it. Aside from any difference of opinion on spiritual matters, I could
actually respect you if you learned to admit your mistakes. In fact, my
chief problem with you has nothing at all to do with your alleged belief in
advaita, but rather in your contemptible behavior which you use to avoid
thoughtful discussions.
Other examples of you putting your foot in your mouth come to mind, but I
will spare you any further embarassment. The point is clear. Your attacks
are mean-spirited and motivated not by a desire for spiritual interest by
instead by a need to somehow make me look bad. Because you are unable to
discuss philosophy, you resort to slander as a means of silencing those who
disagree with you. How typically Hindu. You should realize that it is in
your own best interest to be more honest with yourself and with us. You
impress no one with your religion by demonstrating joy in misrepresenting
others to cover up for your own inadequacies.
Thankfully, I know that real advaita has a much stronger reputation for
debate and discourse than you have displayed so far. I only wish you could
at least come to the level of someone who at least desires to live like a
true advaitin rather than just claiming to be one. At least then we could
have some real discussions.
> unlike you. In any case, this is my last post on this topic.
I doubt that, but then again I guess it's good for you to quit while you
are behind...
-- Krishna
p.s. i request that if you or anyone chooses to continue this thread, that
we get back on the topic of Hinduism and its definition. Unlike you, I have
better things to do with my time than having on-line fights.
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