In my opinion this most important of topics must not be hijacked by religious dogma or women’s rights issues. Views on all sides of such things are passionate, fiercely defended, and for me, paradoxically, they simply cloud and distract.
Instead I suggest invested parties step back … way back … and review their personal convictions about who/what we are, and what life is? …
Continue readingThat God is benevolent and completely in control, yet at the same time bad things happen in this world is a problem for logical and rational thinkers. I think. If we embrace any idea that artificially distances God from something he/she is absolutely in control of, i.e. to explain the suffering of this world without implicating God … as most religions tend to do in one form or another (law of karma, natural law, punishment for sin, our fault, the devil) … even though at the same time believing not a blade of grass moves without the sanction of God aren’t we deceiving ourselves and turning our backs on logical and rational thinking? …
Continue reading1. God chooses to taste and explore rasa.
Our life adventures, dark or light/conscious or unconscious regardless, contribute, albeit in a small way, to the completeness of that exploration. How? Our personal experiences of emotion/feeling, by dint of our enternal jiva individuality, together with our current lifetime tailored conditioning, have a uniqueness about them, and thus value because they add to the completeness of God’s exploration. …
The questions ‘Do you believe in God?’ and ‘Do you have faith?’ are both often taken as ‘Do you believe God exists?’
I propose a more personalised way of understanding.
‘Do you believe in God?’… not so much about ‘Do you believe God exists?’ but more along the lines of one person saying to another ‘I believe in you’. Others may doubt you, defame you, misunderstand you, but I still believe in you. …
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In pondering my own mortality, and in particular the temporary nature of life on Earth, I stumbled into a comparing of my life here with the taking of a vacation.
That a vacation is temporary is not normally perceived as a problem. And that a holiday is not forever is not actually thought of as an impediment to enjoyment of the holiday. …
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Just saying …
So we are faced with three different truths about the shape of an object seen by three separate people. The object is a either round, square or a strange shape … surely they cannot all be correct?
You say it’s round I say no, it’s a square, another says it’s a strange shape. But imagine our seeing ability is restricted to just one eye … i.e. …
Continue readingAnyone who embarks on an adventure with eastern thinking cannot help but come across the notion of the ‘Four Defects of the Conditioned Soul’.
… and the argument that these defects prevent determination of dependable truth, especially in the matter of the meaning and/or purpose of human life.
But the widely recommended solution – submission to infallible authority of guru-sastra-sadhu* – to my mind does not automatically remove one’s personal limitations from their truth-equation. …
Continue readingA follower of religion might fear that by admitting any uncertainty they risk losing their faith. Easier and safer (and certainly more cosy) to just pretend I know rather than I choose to believe … and bury deep any doubting thought as the work of a devil. That somehow it is a fundamental to maintaining and cultivating faith that one never entertains any type of doubting. …
Continue readingAchintya-Bheda-Abheda is a school of Vedanta representing the philosophy of inconceivable one-ness and difference. In Sanskrit achintya means ‘inconceivable’, bheda translates as ‘difference’, and abheda translates as ‘non-difference’.
Achintya-Bheda-Abheda, as explained at Wikipedia
The big difficulty for me with this philosophy is how to overcome the inconceivable part. That there is a simultaneous one-ness and difference between/with God and everything (us included) that emanates from God. …
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