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.

Continue reading...

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. …

Continue reading...

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. …

Continue reading...

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. …

Continue reading...

Trouble is, if everything comes from God … Posted in: Perfection in Seeming Imperfection, Suffering and an all-powerful benevolent God, What are we doing here?

To tell someone who strongly feels they are suffering, and/or this world is very much a place of misery, that they are not in fact suffering at all, and not a fallen soul being punished for their sins, but a divine part of God eternally engaged in the beautiful divine lila (pastimes) of God is unlikely to resonate positively. Reality of suffering is so proven and real that such a idea is more likely lead to negative judgement about God. …

Continue reading...

Suffering Through The Lens Of Oneness With God Posted in: One And Different, Perfection in Seeming Imperfection

From the point of view of us not being God the world may appear to be mainly a place of suffering and ignorance. After all, it is a place of birth, death, old age, and disease. And we don’t really know with certainty who we are, or the limits of our power, or the connection between desire and realisation of dreams etc. …

Continue reading...

Perfect Comes From Perfect Posted in: Perfection in Seeming Imperfection

If one believes God exists, and God is perfect/all-powerful, one might reason that everything that comes from God must also be perfect. Us and this world included. If that is the case, how then are our lives and this world, along with all of its apparent horrors*, perfect?

To my mind, if everything comes from God, in a sense there is nothing but God. …

Continue reading...

Perfect And Complete Posted in: Perfection in Seeming Imperfection

Premise:

God exists. God is perfect and complete. Everything that emanates from God is likewise perfect and complete. Us and this world included. Seeming imperfect/flaw points to misunderstanding of purpose.

How are we and this world perfect?

Possible Purpose:

We are all looking at God
We are all experiencing God
We are all attracted to some aspect or another of God
We are all appreciating some facet or another of God
All from our individual points of view
- Sometimes through the lens of atheism
- Sometimes through the lens of belief in the existence of a God-person
- Sometimes through the lens of belief in the existence of God-impersonal
- Through senses and minds appropriate to our current species of life birth
- Flavoured by association with the modes of material nature
God can rightly claim our experiences as his experience by dint of us being his part and parcels
Our material situation blinkers and focuses our experiences adding further to their uniqueness
Fundamentally our lack omniscience opens the doors to a huge new range of appreciations of God that would otherwise remain out of reach to God (being consciously omniscient).

How is it perfect now? Posted in: Perfection in Seeming Imperfection

If God exists, and God is perfect, is it not then reasonable to suggest that everything emanating from God, us and our lives included, is also perfect?

But who amongst us is seeing their lives and world around us as perfect?

If fact, some say the material world is imperfect. Flawed. A place of suffering, a struggle for existence, a place of birth, death, old-age and disease. …

Always Perfect Posted in: Divinity, Perfection in Seeming Imperfection, The Self Divine

I propose that we are always perfect. Perfect and prefectly situated. Seeming imperfection is always the result of erroneous assumption as to who we are and what we are about. After all we are part of God. We are God in that sense. So how could it be otherwise?

Consider for a moment the case of Dorothy, the sweet and innocent young girl who gets lost in a storm, survives miraculously … only to be pursued by a nightmarish green skinned woman and an army of flying monkeys … wait a minute, isn’t that a film? …