Do you not think that BG 7.24 and 7.25 contradict each other,
7.25 says he is unborn , but 7.24 says he is the Supreme Krishna , and we know that Krishna was born and had a childhood , adulthood , mother , father etc. How do you reconcile.
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Can We be Reasonably Certain That God Wants Us to Follow a Specific Morality?
- Thread starter Sunstone
- Start date
7.25 says he is unborn , but 7.24 says he is the Supreme Krishna , and we know that Krishna was born and had a childhood , adulthood , mother , father etc. How do you reconcile.
Why i take them as authoritative? Because Vedanta does.
Not too personal at all! We may well be getting to the crux of the issue with your personal experience of the form of Vishnu. PM away. I am half asleep, but that's just because I got back from uni and had a nap and am a little groggy still
Done and done!
Yes, that i understand. My kind of worship is actually quite solitary, i like being alone when i praise Lord Visnu, i like thinking of Him and seeing His form in peace and quiet, and that may become a fixation of mine.
Yup
Purely an interpretation of Shastra. Ramanuajcharya's Vedanta Sangraha is his interpretation of shastra
http://ibiblio.org/ramanuja/vedarthasangraham/VedarthaSangraha_English.pdf
One can attain moksha while living, and can leave his/her body at any time
Hmm, i'm not sure. Apologies. This year i have been focusing much more on bhakti, than philosophy.
Jai jai
no they don't contradict cause Krishna is really supreme...about His childhood etc, its called His leela(passtimes)to give more pleasure to his devotees..even Having mother & Father does not affect anything since He appeared to them..Krishna did not take birth as we do..He appeared to Devaki & Vasudeva in the prison of Mathura..its very nicely described in Srimad Bhagavatam canto 10 for reference coz I won't go in detail is quite long.. hope this can help
Pranam Tabu ji, no, they do not at all contradict each other! And i will tell you why
Lord Krsna is unborn in the way that there was never a time where He was not in existence, He is the Supreme Purusha and Swayam Bhagavan, Narayana Himself.
Lord Krsna was not 'born' like a human child. He manifested from Lord Visnu Himself, and so Lord Krsna does not have a material body, but is wholly transcendental, a manifestation of infinite sattva.
Chapter 7, verse 24: Unable to comprehend My imperishable, exalted and Supreme state of being; the spiritually deficient regard me, the unmanifest as coming into existence.
Ramanujacharya's commentary:
Lord Krishna's supreme, infinite and exalted nature is that He is the adorable by all acts of worship He is to be adored. Lord Krishna is the God of the gods, the Supreme Lord of all, whose essence and attributes are inexpressible by speech and unfathomable by thought. Although Lord Krishna appears as the son of King Vasudeva and is actuated by activities of affection to family members and compassion for all beings in order to be accessible to all, He never relinquishes His transcendental divine nature always maintaining His eternal spiritual presence. Foolish people oblivious to this reality look upon Him as any other son born in royalty to a king, awarded such position by the destiny of karma or reaction to past actions brought into patency from an antecedent state of latency. Such living entities do not seek the Supreme Lord as their shelter neither do they worship Him by their actions.
Chapter 7, verse 25: I am not manifest to everyone, being veiled by my illusory potency in the external energy. The ignorant in this world cannot understand me, the unborn and imperishable.
Ramanujacharya's Commentary:
Lord Krishna supreme nature is not easily perceptible to everyone because even though He appears like an extraordinary human to mortals embedded in samsara the endless cycle of birth and death which conditioned living entities are accustomed too, the reality is Lord Krishna possesses an immortal spiritual body that is immutable and eternal. Just because He appears anthropomorphic the people of the world do not comprehend that His avatars or incarnation are orchestrated in a numerous and regulated manner with the express purpose to always be accessible to all. Albeit that Lord Krishna's lilas or phenomenal pastimes eclipse the pastimes of anything heretofore witnessed as well as anything yet to be manifested. This includes anything ever seen by the powerful forces of nature who are merely His represented servants such as Vayu the demigod in charge of wind and Indra the demigod in charge of rain, thunder and lightning. Lord Krishna's lustrous glory dims the light of the sun from the sungod Surya and darkens the glow of the fire of the firegod Agni; but the ignorant masses in this world do not recognise Him because He appears in a humanlike form although He is eternal and never subject to birth and death.
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OK, so why is that sufficient? I do so myself, for my own reasons, but I'm just asking cos I think it's good that we really look into why we follow things, rather than it just being 'I identify with A and B and therefore I must accept X, Y and Z.'
Yeah, I mean don't get me wrong it's great to be fixated. It's that exclusive fixation which comes up that can be an issue socially - we see it in Shiva worship, in Vishnu worship, in the Abrahamic traditions.
And this interpretation is taken as gospel by dint of its association with your chosen sampradaya?
That's cool, practice is vastly superior to theory.
It is sufficient because it involves great personalities like Vyasa-dev or Lord Rama, and great personalities understand it is not something ordinary, like Sri Ramanujacharya or Sri Madhvacharya.
It's all in the Shruti Kirran
Yes.
Haha, yes
Segev Moran
Well-Known Member
The funny thing is, that as we develop as a specie, we interpret what we think God is expecting of us... This is basically a natural evolution of humans as a social species but for some reason, the Theist will claim that if there was no God, we had no morals... yet what was considered morale 300 years ago is much different that what we claim as morale today.
I Think that we slowly (Too slow if you ask me) understand that a "Moral" thing is what advances our specie and improves our goal to survive and advance as a specie.
What about great personalities like Tirumular, Bodhidharma and Gaudapada? :O
It's all in the Shruti Kirran
What is, exclusivism and dogmatism? I doubt that very much!
They do sound like great personalities! (by the way, i don't call Advaitins 'Mayavadins'. Advaitins can be Vaisnava too. I do not call Dvaitins disparaging names also.
Calling a golden spoon crusted with shining jewels gold, and understanding it is a higher grade material than a silver spoon does not mean it is exclusivism. And so, in Vaisnavism, Lord Visnu is a much higher object of worship than the devas.
What dogmatism have i committed?
I suppose there must be reasons you've decided X people are right and Y people are wrong, out of such people? Yeah I know people who I guess you'd call Advaitin that worship primarily Krishna, or Vishnu
Well you were responding to me saying "Yeah, I mean don't get me wrong it's great to be fixated. It's that exclusive fixation which comes up that can be an issue socially - we see it in Shiva worship, in Vishnu worship, in the Abrahamic traditions." So I took you to mean that exclusivism in general was being promulgated by the Vedas etc. In this particular case, I think it is dogmatism to hold to a set of doctrines and ideas which deny the validity of multiple paths to God. For general lurkers etc, I'd like to stress that while this is seen widely among Vaishnavas online, it is by no means universal within Vaishnava traditions.
I suppose there must be reasons you've decided X people are right and Y people are wrong, out of such people? Yeah I know people who I guess you'd call Advaitin that worship primarily Krishna, or Vishnu
Depends on the arguments they propound, Kirran. I don't have a black mace ready to smash my computer or anything
Bashing is a problem, and i'm sure you know that is born of ego, of thinking oneself as superior. I do not deny Saivites Saktas or Smarthas their mode of worship, i do and won't destroy murthys of Lord Siva or Kali, and i have quoted the Bhagavad Gita, where Krsna makes worship to a deva steady. But worshiping a Deva as Supreme is unfruitful, in my opinion.
I understand you find us as dogmatic and exclusivists, but that does not mean it's an objective fact.
Depends on the arguments they propound, Kirran. I don't have a black mace ready to smash my computer or anything
Bashing is a problem, and i'm sure you know that is born of ego, of thinking oneself as superior. I do not deny Saivites Saktas or Smarthas their mode of worship, i do and won't destroy murthys of Lord Siva or Kali, and i have quoted the Bhagavad Gita, where Krsna makes worship to a deva steady. But worshiping a Deva as Supreme is unfruitful, in my opinion.
I understand you find us as dogmatic and exclusivists, but that does not mean it's an objective fact.
I'd venture that one can say whether or not ideas being propounded are exclusivist and dogmatic or not quite objectively - what is more debatable is whether or not that's a good thing!
So of course from certain Vaishnava perspectives, to be exclusivist is only correct, only reasonable. Exclusivism need not be seen negatively by people who see things in that light anyway. Certainly many groups will extoll dogmatism highly as well. These words tend to have negative connotations, but what they're referring to can well be seen as something very positive within a tradition.