God
started by premsaran 5 mnths agoReplies
>>> Kusukusu, are you a Jain?
- Seva
Sorry only now seeing your question. No I am not Jain or anything. Birth in Vaishanava family but now for last many years not follow any thing. Like Mahavira's original idea for Nasthikam. That is all. Kusukusu.
The reason I had asked about it was that there is a famous Jain temple in Kangra, next to the famous Kangra Fort. The temple has a very interesting history even though it is not more than 40 years old - it wasn't built when I studied in a school in Kangra in 1960s.
About 1200 years ago, the Hindu king ruling that area had a queen who belonged to the Jain faith. She had her own praying area inside the fort, which included a small temple with a statue of Mahavir, the last Tiranthkar.
It seems the details about this temple inside the Fort, especially as belonging to Jain faith, were lost for a long time, at least until recently. In fact, the particular temple and Mahavir statue were for a long time thought to be of a Hindu deity. Note that even when I studied in Kangra and often walked during school breaks with my friends inside the unprotected and unsupervised fort at that time, we thought that this temple, containing the Mahavir statue, might be a Vishnu temple.
But then, about 40 years ago, someone found out the real history of temple that it was really a Jain temple inside the fort belonging to a queen long ago and that it contained a statue of Mahavir.
After hearing the news about this new find inside Kangra Fort, the Indian Jain community (quite rich and resourceful) wanted to refurbish and expand the temple inside the Fort. But the Govt. did not grant permission for any new construction inside the historical monument. In stead, the Jain community was permitted to build a new temple just outside the Fort.
After receiving permission from the Govt. for a new construction, a large, beautiful Jain temple was built next to the Fort. Now pilgrims belonging to the Jain community from all over
- Seva
The statue / idol discovered inside the Kangra Fort temple was that of Adinath (the first Tirthankar) and not Mahavir (the last or 24th Tirthankar). Thus the new Jain temple outside the Fort is dedicated to Adinath, and Kangra considered an important tirtha (holy place) by the Jain community due to historical significance of the temple.
- Seva
Very interesting! You make a very important point.
However, if we count how many Tirthankaras there are, we realize that by just asking people to be pure we won't achieve an enlightened society. Just look at the behavior of modern rationalists - how many in them are Tirthankaras? Look at the Hindu society - how many are saints? In any society, Tirthankaras are a tiny minority. The majority of people dwell with a lot of baggage - some operate with a heart filled with greed, some with hatred, others with insecurity and many with ahamkara. Just look around on the CH and see how people with impressive degrees from well-known colleges are behaving!
Every society needs a structure to deal with internal and external strife. Look at what is happening in Tibet - I saw a picture of a Tibetan, sitting quietly and meditating (that is his way of protesting), and a couple of Chinese soldiers beating him up and then throwing him into a police van. If you send a Tirthankara to such a scene, do you think the Chinese soldiers will pray to him? Try sending a good looking Tirthankara female to Stalin in Chennai and see what happens! Show a tabloid or a newspaper with facts to some people and see which ones they read drooling!
I bet Dalai Lama is very frustrated right now! Today, he offered to quit.
If an Advaitin looks at a lion and says, “hello Brahman”, lion-Brahman will enforce non-duality by eating him!
> The majority of people dwell with a lot of baggage - some operate with a heart filled with greed, some with
> hatred, others with insecurity and many with ahamkara.
Are you suggesting that a fascination for the human arse may be born out of insecurity? Or is it greed? I don't see how it can be ahamkara or hatred, so I have managed to eliminate those two choices without having to use Fifty-Fifty. Now I want to use Phone-A-Friend and you are the friend. Please help!
However, there is no need to create something first and then try to prove or disprove it. The simplest answer is usually the correct one. If the universe can do without a god, then there is very little reason for god to exist.
Besides, there are issues with being omniscient. It is not possible to be omniscient and have experiences. Separate thread for this later.
Can anyone prove that a four headed green monster doesn't exist anywhere in the universe? Are we to therefore believe that it exists?
OK Blade, you don't have to go to the length of a Fourheaded Green Monster. Can you explain in simple and non scientific terms the two things in which millions of people believe?
1. The Bermuda Triangle ?
2. The Loch Ness Monster?
Regards.
Rajaputhran.
These are very good examples of how people try to come up with incredible answers to things they cannot explain.
God is a product of such exercise. Things happen in life that we can't accept as normal. Life seems unfair. In an effort to convince ourselves that there is a meaning in life, we came up with the concept of extended life - life after death and so on.
If you question the need to have answers, you will see why we have these answers
Sometimes you start believing in god out of desperation. that is the only way to maintain hope and stay alive. However, that still does not mean god exists.
Do people believe in god? they do. Does god exist? I dont know. Probably not.
If this qustion is yet bothering you then you have not reached that point in life where some situation in life is uttermost difficult,
a do or die situation where with out qustionning you pray for help. guidence.
Acording to me every one in their life several times or at least once go through this and look up and say god please help in complete faith.
if you say you have gone through life not even saying once 'oh!god please help me' then either you lie or you have escaped which on self beliving self respecting human will do.
so there it is . fi you beleive in your self , you also believe in God .
Lakshmi Maganti.
i have seen enough of life.. I don t know about your age..... I am fifty
in sulekha unfortunately there is no provison for recording age a boy of 20 can exchange some kind of conversation , whcih he would not have done in his family in the real life, with a person of opposite sex much elder to him in age . In the process t he two providing entertainment to community........ do they believe in god........... I dont know.. their inner self knows this......
...... That apart, what I am saying is socitical feeing of belief in god......not my personal feeling s and beliefs....... It is a topic for discussion.... I will be glad if the discussion is .. restricted to the topic....... Nothing else. we are all masked people here....... God fearing?
......
my mistake i don't know how to edit this.
i must have checked before posting .
please in the last two lines on is no and fi is if.
i wish sulekha had a method to edit our coments too
my apologies.
Lakshmi Maganti.
You seem to have gotten your priorities wrong! Before we venture to answer your question : " Do We really believe in GOD? The fundamental question that needs to be answeed is who are WE? I mean You and I. So, before one can answer your question, one should be clear in one's mind, as to who Am I ? Do, I believe in Myself to believe in GOD? If not, what purpose is served in asking and answering an inane question like Do WE Really believe in God?
Before starting to believe in God, I must know for certain, as to who this God is. What type of a persona is HE. Is HE a man or a woman or is he a combination of both? An Ardhanari, perhaps? Conceding the juvenile attempts of half baked atheists insisting that from our childhood, we have been brainwashed into believing in the existence of GOD, we believers must be able to satisfy ourselves as to who THIS GOD IS. Mind you this is not child's play.
The other day a class V student answered his teacher about GOD in the following words.
"I know who this GOD is ! If there is a God, he is too nice to want to punish me no matter what wrongs I do. Right? And if there isn't any God then I have not really lost anything !"
I think, he reprersents most grown-ups when it comes to demystifying GOD.
The fact is, our age has been branded as atheistic and secular because we dare to question (the existence of God) and we do so openly. Faith has the least hold on us. As expounded in the Upanishads[Vedanta] Hinduism is not the declaration of a any one individual, but is the conclusion of generations of investigators. The investigators, our great rishis, or sages, found that the subtlest of the subtle, the principle, or truth, resides within us a divine spark enveloped as it where by the grosser coatings of matter, the grossest being the physical body.
The sum total of all the intellects of all the individuals (jivas) that are living in the visible world (Jagat) is the concept of God. Not our conception of God as Rama, Krishna, Shiva, Christ, Mohammed etc., but the total concept - the God Principle. God is the total casual body of the universe.
Take the example of cotton, from which thread came and reshaped into cloth with all its patterns. The principle of truth, is like cotton. From truth an immediate modification is the God-Principle (thread) called Ishwara, and the modification of the God-principle is Man (cloth). In Vedanta, the all prevading Supreme Reality does not actually undergo any change, as milk changes to curd. All plurality is only an appearance like a rope mistaken for a snake. Appearance is time bound. God Principle is beyond time. [Say Cheese ! Swami Chinmayananda. ]
Now who is this Ishwara, the Supreme Reality? the Paramatma, the Devata?
“Who is this Lord Who is neither material nor an individual, finite spirit?” asks the great sage Vyasa in his commentary on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. For how will we seek and recognize Him if we have no idea who He is? The word being translated as “God” or “Lord” is Ishwara which means the Ruler, Master, or Controller. Ishwara implies the powers of omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience.
Ishwara is the Supreme Power, Parameshwara.
Since we need some workable or pragmatic understanding of the nature of God, however imperfect or partial it might be. Patanjali supplies us with exactly the kind of definition we need: “Ishwara is a particular Spirit. Who is untouched by the afflictions of life, life's actions and the results and impressions [conditionings] produced by these actions.”
First Patanjali assures us that God is a Person (Purusha) in the fullest sense of the term. Furthermore, He is a vishesha Purusha–a special, unique Person–not just abstract Existence or the conglomerate of Being or Beingness, whatever that would be or mean. Vishesha also means a particular being in the sense that God can be “picked out” or “singled out” from among all other things or beings. We are told by Patanjali that God is a “special” or vishesha purusha (spirit) so we will realize that, although we are always one with God, at the same time in an inexplicable manner there is an eternal difference between us and God. We are one with Him, but we are not Him. The ocean is the wave, but the wave is not the ocean–as Shankara has said. Vyasa asks: “Is He [Ishwara] then one of those who have attained liberation [moksha]? There are many who have done so. No; untouched by such experience is the Lord, Who is a special kind of Purusha. Others have attained liberation by cutting the three bonds, but for the Lord such bondage never was nor will come to be, as it will for one who has absorbed his mind into prakriti [matter–by entering into relative existence for his evolution]. But the Lord is ever freed, ever the Lord. His eternal perfection is from perfect sattwa.”
For a greater understanding of this concept I will direct you to this article by Swami Nirmalananda Giri at this site : http://www.atmajyoti.org/who_is_god.asp
Regards.
Rajaputhran.
I am greatful for your elaborate information which is very useful...........Many persons out of their irrestible temptations do manywrong things still say that they believe in god........... to better understand this concept I posted topic hee... it is not my belief or other wise of the existence of god.........the contradictions i see in the same human beings at diiferent times make me to believe that they say that they believe in god but actually doesnt.........In big temples where huge crowd is there the archaka or some one in charge there collects some money from some of them and allows them to continue for some time........ I dont know whether that construes belief in god......... by bribing soem one and praying for some time... the person who takes money and gives money probably do not believe in god.... thsi is my perception...... My personal feelings about god are different from what I intend to learn from the discussion........ I will give them tooo.......Thanks for your valuable points..... I could learn many things.......
I have seen more atheists outside Tirupati temple than in a shopping mall in Chennai! Looking at the responses to your post, it seems that VC is most obsessed with God.
Just imagine an atheist naming his son or daughter after some Hindu God (for whatever reason, the wife probably insisted) and is obsessed with God all the time! When he is old and still stubborn in his views (but is all consumed by thinking about "God") calls the name of his son/daughter with a lot of affection! I bet an atheist loves his kids as much as a believer does. In fact, an atheist may love his kids more! Technically, the difference between an atheist and a true believer is that the former is attached to what he sees, perceives, thinks and does while he rejects the notion that there is one thing common to all (the Hindu God, acc. to Vedanta). Hiranyakashyap and Ajaameela loved themselves, their achievements and most importantly their son!
In fact, if you examine carefully, you will notice that those who are completely and genuinely devoted to something and act accordingly are not that different from those who do the same to some "God"! After all, what is wrong in being so attached to anything if what we have is all pervading Brahman? Salvation through genuine atheism is therefore possible! It is the juvenile variety that may end up being confused - whether one is a theist or atheist!
Looking at your responses to any post on God, it seems that you are obsessed with VC.
Read my post again - I was not criticizing your friend or you! Looks like the name Hiranyakashyap in the post (or was it the word "juvenile"?) provoked something in you! I was using Hiranyakashyap and Ajameela as examples of people who can find salvation.
Speaking of salvation, let us see how Hiranyakashyap got his - wow!
Oh, BTW, she is also an IITian....;)
I have never taken that as a bad thing :).
> She didn't need your endorsement.
Nor yours. You are taking this too personally, old man!
>>I have never taken that as a bad thing :). <<
You misinterpreted it as "Suryakantam"! Reminds me of a student - he thought I was against him since I didn't discuss "important matters" with him! He tried very hard to google and put together "important information" and I didn't discuss with him. Now he is doing what he is "really good at"! He visits me every Christmas.
was going through all your answers and ......
i found something interesting on this URL whilst surfing . please do check it out....
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/03/god-particle/particle-interactive.html
too late..