You Have The Power Posted in: The Self Divine

The popular understanding of karma, especially if one wants to think in terms of good karma and bad karma outcome absolutes, to me requires an established/predefined something to measure action and thought against … for example pre-determined moral codes, laws of acceptable behaviour, and logically therefore also ultimately a prescription of the goal of life by God.

Whereas Christianity has the idea of God’s 10 commandments, and designation of soul as sinner for those who transgress, and the notion that the goal of life is to seek redemption, I wonder if these ideas are present within the Dharmic Tradition? …

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Sin Is Not An Actual Thing Posted in: Divine Expression, The Self Divine

The word sin normally refers to transgression of absolute (non-contextual) laws of acceptable behaviour decreed by God. A sinner is defined as one to transgresses such laws in much the same way that a criminal is one who transgresses the law of the land.

But in my opinion sin is not an actual thing … it’s a construct that helps one who needs fear of punishment to motivate them to avoid activities that aren’t helpful to spiritual realisation. …

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First Principles – A Confession Posted in: Perfection in Seeming Imperfection

A confession … or at least an explanation for my Hare Krishna friends who wonder why that previously humble/submissive Divyasimha das now sometimes refuses to bow to authority of guru, sadhu and sastra.

Well, it all comes down to first principles.

According to Wikipedia …

In philosophy and science, a first principle is a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption … are from first cause attitudes commonly referred to as a priori terms and arguments, which are contrasted to a posteriori terms, reasoning, or arguments, in that the former are simply assumed and exist prior to the reasoning process, and the latter are deduced or inferred after the initial reasoning process.

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No such thing as sin Posted in: Freedom From Judgement, The Self Divine

In the dharmic tradition there is no such thing as sin*. Or at least no such thing as non-contextual sin. Why? Because that would require absolute laws, pre-established by God, as to what is acceptable action, word, thought, etc. Step outside such laws and one becomes sinful. Simple. It’s a very Christian idea. But not at all a dharmic tradition idea. …

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Ancient Beings Posted in: Aggressor-Victim

What if victims are really neither children or any type of vulnerable person but ancient beings who have done it all (almost all) many times before? And while they may themselves presently be identifying self in victim terms, and onlookers see them in terms of their present bodily situation, they are all actually eternal souls expressing and exploring divinity by choice? …

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Thoughts on the notion of eternal, beginningless conditioning of the jiva (soul) Posted in: Perfection in Seeming Imperfection, Suffering and an all-powerful benevolent God

In this connection the reference sanskrit words are nitya-baddha (eternally conditioned) and anadi (beginningless).

Firstly, our experience of life here makes it difficult to think outside the box of cause and effect – where everything has a beginning and end in time. However that is precisely the eternal arena that the words nitya-baddha and anadi are dealing with. This difficulty is perhaps the reason that even sanskrit scholars and/or dharma-tradition religionists who accept the situation in the material world for the conditioned soul is anadi, beginningless, sometimes prescribe remedies as if suffering here is actually caused by poor attitude toward God of historic origin. …

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Maybe Sin Is Not An Actual Thing Posted in: Perfection in Seeming Imperfection, Suffering and an all-powerful benevolent God

Maybe sin is not an actual thing.

More a way of explaining why we are here, and at the same time not blaming God for the suffering of the world.

Needed by those who doubt good reason for God’s creation.

An attempt to distance God from what appears to be unworthy … incompatible with an all-beautiful, all-perfect, all-powerful God.

Personally, given (my) conviction that not a blade of grass moves without the sanction of the Lord, I find the ‘sin’ explanation fails to convincingly separate the situation here from God. …

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Perfect Arrangement Posted in: Perfection in Seeming Imperfection

I propose that the jiva (individual soul) is never at odds with God but is always functioning exactly as intended. It cannot be otherwise. It is a perfect arrangement befitting a Perfect God. That we are fallen souls, or for that matter identify ourselves in any other way whatsoever, is simply a construct which facilitates, provides a stage for, a particular flavour of our joint lila. …

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The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (documentary) Posted in: Films, Seeing the Divine

The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (Netflix documentary)

When Norwegian gamer Mats Steen died at age 25, his parents mourned what they thought was an isolated life. It was only once they had access to his blog that they discovered the deep friendships he created virtually before passing away from a degenerative muscular disease. They were unaware that Mats had long been leading a vibrant digital life that had left a profound impact on a community of fellow gamers.

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The Main Problem With Denying Ones Divinity … Posted in: The Self Divine

The main problem with denying ones divinity is that one tends to think of their suffering in terms of ‘why me?’, or ‘I’m being punished from transgression of some pre-defined code of acceptable conduct’, whereas ‘how does this serve me?’ becomes more the mindset when self-divinity is accepted. Perhaps that is why Bhagavad-gita 2.15 states

yaṁ hi na vyathayanty ete
puruṣaṁ puruṣarṣabha
sama-duḥkha-sukhaṁ dhīraṁ
so ’mṛtatvāya kalpate

O best among men [Arjuna], the person who is not disturbed by happiness and distress and is steady in both is certainly eligible for liberation.

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