tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160064815613449047.post5636761188541026587..comments2024-03-05T12:44:37.415-08:00Comments on Sookta Sumana: TYRANNICAL MIND CONTROL TO IMPRISON MIND FROM IMAGINING MORE THAN ONE IMAGINARY GOD THAT IS IMMATURELY JEALOUS BUT BETTER THAN YOURS ! ! ! ? ? ? DAH !nokidding---http://www.blogger.com/profile/03403515418075019046noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160064815613449047.post-80408716064543465432012-04-14T22:53:47.601-07:002012-04-14T22:53:47.601-07:00To be continued as comments after the new article ...To be continued as comments after the new article by Vijaya Rajiva published on April 14, 2012.nokidding---https://www.blogger.com/profile/03403515418075019046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160064815613449047.post-25908333788022863032012-04-14T22:52:33.896-07:002012-04-14T22:52:33.896-07:00The above two comments are by "no kidding&quo...The above two comments are by "no kidding" and by Ishwar Sharan in reply respectively.nokidding---https://www.blogger.com/profile/03403515418075019046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160064815613449047.post-15287350511719733522012-04-14T20:31:11.974-07:002012-04-14T20:31:11.974-07:00Aadi Shankara always advocated and promoted Vedic ...Aadi Shankara always advocated and promoted Vedic polytheism (in the worship of the Six Gods: Surya, Ganapati, Vishnu, Shiva, Devi, and Skanda (in all of their multitude of manifestations and variations)) for every man. Monism--Advaita Vedanta--is only for the sannyasins and not for the man on the street with responsibilities. A great problem of misunderstanding has arisen because monism, presented today as popularised Vedanta, is promoted by our modern gurus to the public instead of worship of the "Gods" or Devatas. They should not do it but they think it is a counter to Abrahamic monotheism. They are very naive. The counter to Abrahamic monotheism is Vedic polytheism/pantheism. Dr. Rajiva is right to promote polytheism over monotheism. But the common mistake of thinking that monotheism and monism are the same should be avoided by readers. In fact they are on opposite ends of the philosophical spectrum. Monotheism refers to a divine PERSON with a name and a character. Its opposite is polytheism which refers to many divine PERSONS with names and characters. Monism, or Advaita Vedanta, refers to a FIRST PRINCIPLE without a name or character though It has qualities (sat, chit and ananda). This PRINCIPLE has no opposite because it is infinite and all inclusive, a totality in itself. The mistake Hindus make is to think this FIRST PRINCIPLE and the monotheistic god are the same thing, or that the monotheistic god is a personification of this Principle. They have been led to believe this by their own misguided gurus of the last 150 years and by the missionaries themselves. In fact ALL GODS personify this FIRST PRINCIPLE which cannot be worshipped. It can only be identified with, and this identification, which is the object of all sadhanas and yogas, CANNOT TAKE PLACE until the duties and responsibilities of polytheistic life and religion are completed. So polytheism is what we must PRACTICE--never mind what we think. We should not be ashamed of this and not be bullied into thinking that worshipping ONLY ONE of the gods (presuming of course that the Abrahamic god is a god and not something else) is superior to worshipping ALL OF THEM.nokidding---https://www.blogger.com/profile/03403515418075019046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160064815613449047.post-60599143711994804212012-04-14T20:23:45.045-07:002012-04-14T20:23:45.045-07:00There is a need for reinterpretation of Hindu poly...There is a need for reinterpretation of Hindu polytheism without a complex. That is lacking today.<br /> <br />"Monotheism and Monism" of modern Hindus is an apologetic obsequious stance. Hopefully Dr. Rajiva's article and persuasions by scholars like you will start a renaissance of traditional Hinduism. Even Advaitavaaadin Aadi Shankaracharya was not monotheistic. He was comfortable with Bhakti which presupposes presence of "dvaita bhava."nokidding---https://www.blogger.com/profile/03403515418075019046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160064815613449047.post-20892396848882170512012-04-14T19:23:24.247-07:002012-04-14T19:23:24.247-07:00With due respect, I cannot agree with this notion ...With due respect, I cannot agree with this notion that the Xian, and later Muslim, ideologues did not understand what Polytheism is. They understood it very well and decided to root it out in order the establish their god as supreme without a second (no wife even!). It was a conscious political decision made after they evaluated the religious-social milieu they lived in. They all knew Polytheism very well as the whole of the pre-Greek, Greek and Roman Mediterranean was Polytheistic with inputs from Hindu and Buddhist groups in the area. <br /><br />A very telling point about Monotheism is the conduct of its "inventor" Akhenaton, who decided one morning after a bad night's sleep that the sun, the solar disk, was the only god worthy of worship. He immediately began defacing and destroying the temples of the other deities in Egypt and had the Holy Cow in Memphis slaughtered. There is also the record of Moses (who may have belonged to the Akhenaton house) who first killed off the Hebrews who didn't accept his god YHWH (ya'wa), and then when the Hebrews entered into the land of Canaan (today's Palestine/Israel), set about destroying the Polytheistic, culturally sophisticated city states of the area. In fact these Hebrews under Joshua and his lieutenants perpetrated the first holocaust recorded in history. They made the name of a great queen, Jezebel, into an synonym for a degraded whore. These are the origins of the Judeo-Xian ideology of monotheism. So it cannot be accepted that the Syrian Xian, then Muslim, then European and British colonisers of India didn't know what Polytheism was. They knew it very well and set about to destroy it the same way Akhenaton, Moses, Joshua and their successors set about to destroy it.<br /><br />What has to change in our India is our own self-doubt and attitude to the word. The route the Brahmo Samaj and Arya Samaj and RKM (today) (R K Malhotra) took was misguided and has served us no good purpose. We are not monotheists and never will be. We have to do what Dr Rajiva is suggesting: Return to our Vedic Polytheistic roots and not be ashamed that we have inherited a vast family of Gods who know and are related to each other and to us too. What a wonder! It is our bounden duty now to remember them. - IS (Ishwar Sharan)nokidding---https://www.blogger.com/profile/03403515418075019046noreply@blogger.com