A 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. …
Continue readingOne often finds the sanskrit word karma translated as action or work. But sometimes, and especially in the western mind, people take it to mean reaction rather than action, or something subtle that binds one to the cycle of birth and death (samsara) — administered by some sort of unseen cosmic debt collecting task-force requiring balance in the universe be restored. …
Continue readingWe find it relatively easy to dismiss as false or deluded the truths of others … especially when they don’t tally with our own. We might consider them ridiculous, unbelievable, inconceivable, implausible, or even insane. No more thought required.
But what if the same processes apply to us that make such ‘wrong’ truths acceptable, or even absolute, to others? In other words, our finding something believable – real – true, no matter how implausible to another, is arrived at in fundamentally the same way as theirs is. …
Continue readingAccording to Vedic thought, planet Earth is located in the midway planetary system (Bhu-loka), and our present time is near the beginning of Kali Yuga, the last of the four cyclic ages.
Planet Earth, as a middle level planet, is not typically a place where enlightened beings tend to take birth. Compared to the other three yugas, Kali Yuga is characterised as the age of least enlightenment. …
Continue readingIf everything is simply the imaginings and role-plays of God, then surely everything is contrived: God is pretending – contriving – not to be god for the sake of achieving some specific experience and enjoyment?
What we generally mean by contrived is something we consider to be concocted for a less worthy objective. But is not worthiness of objective a subjective (contrived) judgement? …
Continue readingSometimes adult society is dismissive of the emotional experience of children and/or younger people. Take the expression ‘puppy love’ for example … an adult judgement that prepubescent romantic love is not real, or at least is in some way inferior to the adult counterpart.
I suggest, however, that compared to an adult, there is no reason to believe the ability to feel emotion is in anyway restricted by the soul wearing the mind/intellect/life experience/maturity of a child. …
Continue readingThe lyric of this song is a bit of a rant against what I consider the dumbed-down values and social expectations placed upon us by government/corporations in 2012 UK society (perhaps this is a global trend?) – together with my observation that generations presently growing up do not realise that just a few decades ago ideas like sending small babies to daycare so mum can hurry back to the work place, or the necessity of both partners working just to make ends meet would have seemed outrageous. …
Continue readingThe lyric of my song is an imagined conversation between God and a soul, loosely based on the two-bird-in-a-tree analogy found in the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad … but presented strictly in terms of my own understanding 🙂
Free listen/download of song at
http://www.songsofdave.com/song-details.php?id=262
Verse 1
So if you want me
Know where to look
Find my number
It’s in the book
‘So’ to convey this is not the beginning of the dialogue, ‘Know’ intended as both suggestion and acknowledgement. …
Continue readingI am not dismisive of being in ‘love’, or the associated euphoric feelings.
My proposal is that love is simply the wrong word. The correct word is ‘infatuation’. Sorry … I know it doesn’t sound so lofty 🙂
And that love is not a feeling or state of being … rather a giving; a caring; a doing … always a conscious choice. …
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