Interpretation of the Shastras

[RamaRaksha]

i agree with anupj, your comments has nothing to do with concept of moksha in existing shasthras. If you think you are correct, i request you to write a new shashtra.

As I have written I think the shastras or the holy books are being misintrepreted. The meaning of words change over time, values also change. I think we have had enough people posting about how one should get rid of desires, and I do believe that their intepretation is wrong.

 

[nameless]

And in the end who does it benefit? Just himself, he gets Moksha? A Tata on the other hand, is making a real difference in the life of millions! I think if you can make the world better, you will get closer to God. If you are selfish and can only think how you can get to Moksha (which by the way is also a desire), then I fear you are going to be disappointed.

Lord Buddha escaped when he had lots of duties, towards his country and family. So pls tell me, is Buddha selfish?

Even the Shashthras which you are talking about are written by the sages, they did not tried to become rich to help people financially. You are saying they are selfish and wrong, also you are intepreting the shasthras written by them. Im sorry to say that you should give up intepreting shastras if you disrespect those sages.

 

[anupj]

Please see my first post. To me, debating on what a book says without intepreting its meaning is rote learning.

i asked the questions only after reading the previous posts. the day i came here on RF i was willing to learn something new, and i believe that if i listen to what others say, then i will learn many new things. that is the only reason that i asked you to clarify some of the points.

if you dont want to answer so many questions, it's ok, but i genuinely am interested in knowing your views about following:

do you believe in the concept of maya as described by hinduism?
is there any way for a person who is deeply involved/immersed in maya, still he can attain moksha without getting away from the so called maya?

i believe, the most difficult thing to do is change somebody's way of thinking(views, values, etc.), this is the job of his own, the best i can do is to suggest him something which i feel is good. so if in any case my previous post sounded to be offensive or something else, then please forgive me.

 

[RamaRaksha]

Lord Buddha escaped when he had lots of duties, towards his country and family. So pls tell me, is Buddha selfish?

Even the Shashthras which you are talking about are written by the sages, they did not tried to become rich to help people financially. You are saying they are selfish and wrong, also you are intepreting the shasthras written by them. Im sorry to say that you should give up intepreting shastras if you disrespect those sages.

please don't misunderstand me - I love science and as they say, there are no wrong questions in science. Similarly I am here to pose some out of the box questions, maybe make you think. If you don't find them to your liking, as many posts on these kind of boards are, you simply move on. But If i can make you rethink a bit.

Regarding the Buddha or the sages, no doubt these were good people. The Buddha was a great man who chose to leave a life of comfort. He was bothered with questions and he tried his best to answer them.

As for the sages - let me digress a bit about the shastras - as I have originally stated there seems to be a bit of misinterpretation of these shastras. If you recall this is what I keep saying. We have found a treasure map and you are reading the clues and I am saying that you are reading the clues wrong. I feel like I am getting you out of your comfort zone?

As for the sages being selfish, anyone who is working towards Mokshs is a bit selfish don't you think? After all, is that not a desire also? And whom does it benefit? One person.

 

[RamaRaksha]

This has nothing to do with the sages, but as long as we are talking about riches - if God came down and asked you to choose between these two:

1. A Thousand Mother Teresa's
2. A Thousand JRD Tata's

Which one would you choose? Personally I would choose the thousand Tata's because then the country would be rich! There would be no need for a 1000 mother teresa's. She didn't go to countries like England or Norway, she came to India, because the suffering was here.

War is not the greatest evil, poverty is.

A 1000 teresa's won't be able to help a poor suffering person. By the way she was helped by a lot of donations - donations from rich and the working - people who had jobs thanks to the likes of Tata

There is an old saying - Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, Teach a man to Fish and you feed him for his entire life! With a 1000 Teresa's you feed a man for a day, but with a 1000 Tata's you teach a man to fish!

 

[RamaRaksha]

i asked the questions only after reading the previous posts. the day i came here on RF i was willing to learn something new, and i believe that if i listen to what others say, then i will learn many new things. that is the only reason that i asked you to clarify some of the points.

if you dont want to answer so many questions, it's ok, but i genuinely am interested in knowing your views about following:

do you believe in the concept of maya as described by hinduism?
is there any way for a person who is deeply involved/immersed in maya, still he can attain moksha without getting away from the so called maya?

i believe, the most difficult thing to do is change somebody's way of thinking(views, values, etc.), this is the job of his own, the best i can do is to suggest him something which i feel is good. so if in any case my previous post sounded to be offensive or something else, then please forgive me.

Thank you, i felt that you were a bit angry in your previous post. Good to know that you are not, no need to apologize.

To me blindly accepting anything written in an ancient text is idolatry. After all we know that what christians believe - the earth is 5,000 years old, the denial of evolution - is wrong. Yet some of them blindly go about supporting those words. We should not do the same. If their texts are wrong, why shouldn't our be? Please, I am not saying they are, but we should keep this option open.

I do not believe that this sansar is Maya. I think God gave us humans a thinking brain, a desire to question things, a desire to explore the world around us and ask questions. In fact that is the reason that made evolution possible - that's the reason why we left the other animals far behind.

And then God would be angry if we were to use this brain? We should go about our lives as brainless robots? To me the path to Moksha lies in leaving this world a better place than when i first came into it. That is what Gandhiji, Mother Teresa, the Buddha had done.

 

[RamaRaksha]

What Krishna taught was to do your duty and live your life without attachment to fruitive results. I'm afraid that material goals and achievements fall into that catagory. Again, this is not wrong or bad but it will keep you in the material world. If you are a good person and work very hard then you ar elikely to be born into a good life; but that life will still be in the material world.
I should emphasise again that to attain liberation the equation is not:

losing desires ---> moksha

it is:

Discover God---> lose desires

As we become closer to God we lose attachment to fruitive work and things material. It is a natural process. In the meantime it is important to strive to be a good person and to do good. Being lazy is not good because it is a sign of being in the mode of ignorance. Having determination and motivation to doing one's duty or to reach your best potential is in the mode of goodness. It is a good thing but the need for it, or desire for it will slowly disappear as you come closer to Realisation.

The human body is wonderful as it allows us to use our intelligence and morality and empathy to further ourselves in both spiritual and/or material ways. But remember that we have been through every form of life including germs and plants etc. We have existed forever. We are incredibly fortunate to finally be in a human form. But even in this human form we are trapped by maya, which is the covering of this universe. Maya creates the illusion of duality. We think we are completely seperate and we are generally selfish creatures. We cannot understand our connection to the Divine and to everythign in existence. So we do care about being better than others in our class and so on. When we finally realise that nothing we do in this material world that is not done in God Consciousness is a waste of time then we also attain liberation.

Nobody here is at such a stage, or even close. If we were, we would not be in this world.

If I had the choice between attaining Moksha or to better the lives of those less fortunate than myself, I would choose the latter. An Atheist who is spending his life helping others is not doing it for some "higher" purpose, he is not even thinking about getting to Moksha, he is doing it so that others can be happy. That to me, is finding God.

Make a difference in the lives of others, and you will surely find God.

As for desires, I have already posted why desires are necessary and beneficial. Please see my example about the desire for a shirt in one of my previous posts addressed to you.

Another point about desires, first we are born out of desire, don't you think? A desire between man and woman.

Second, we go thru life desiring a lot of things - a desire to get good marks was my thing in school. I assume you are an adult - give me an honest answer - would you advice your own children or relatives children not to aspire for higher marks?

As we grow to adulthood, we have other desires - a desire for a good job, to make our parents happy, to get married, have children, a desire to see the children make good, a desire to see them be safe. If you were the mother of son who was in the army and a war broke out, don't you have the desire to him be safe and sound?

And then finally we reach old age. All our responsibilities are done, we lose the ability to do a lot of things, to enjoy many things.

Ah, now we get to finding God - let's lose desires! How convenient.

 

[anupj]

all i can say is getting moksha is not a desire. a person when involved in maya goes through a lot of suffering, and this is a cycle which keeps on repeating and the person keeps on suffering. hence a person who renounces all the attachments is free from all suffering, and hence his soul is free from the cycle of birth and death of its material bodies. his desire is not moksha but the result of his activities is moksha for his soul. such people are not selfish, they are actually selfless. hence they can actually make the world much better, because they wont think of themselves, they will think of others actually. one cannot attain moksha by renouncing all activities. the almighty has also prescribed a yoga known as Karma Yoga which has to be followed.

and i am sorry that my posts made you feel that i was angry. actually i am not good at english and my vocabulary is also not that good. many times it happened that i wrote many paragraphs in a post and at the time of posting it i reread it once more, and just to make it look good, i have cut down my post to a few lines(and sometimes not posted it at all, the reason behind my lower post counts). so forgive me for my ignorance in learning the language. and yeh i am not angry this time as well

 

[Onkara]

As for the sages being selfish, anyone who is working towards Mokshs is a bit selfish don't you think? After all, is that not a desire also? And whom does it benefit? One person.

Hi, peace to all!
You could approach the question above as follows:

Yes, you are right, sages are selfish and they only think of their self. It only benefits One person, that person will be you. Then you can help others, like me, who are suffering in some way, e.g. poor or needing friendship and advice. Until we reach the state of a sage we cannot help others, as we cannot help ourselves.

Forgive me for not addressing desire. I think that is covered well.
Respectfully, Onkarah.

 

[Madhuri]

If I had the choice between attaining Moksha or to better the lives of those less fortunate than myself, I would choose the latter. An Atheist who is spending his life helping others is not doing it for some "higher" purpose, he is not even thinking about getting to Moksha, he is doing it so that others can be happy. That to me, is finding God.

Make a difference in the lives of others, and you will surely find God.

As for desires, I have already posted why desires are necessary and beneficial. Please see my example about the desire for a shirt in one of my previous posts addressed to you.

Another point about desires, first we are born out of desire, don't you think? A desire between man and woman.

Second, we go thru life desiring a lot of things - a desire to get good marks was my thing in school. I assume you are an adult - give me an honest answer - would you advice your own children or relatives children not to aspire for higher marks?

As we grow to adulthood, we have other desires - a desire for a good job, to make our parents happy, to get married, have children, a desire to see the children make good, a desire to see them be safe. If you were the mother of son who was in the army and a war broke out, don't you have the desire to him be safe and sound?

And then finally we reach old age. All our responsibilities are done, we lose the ability to do a lot of things, to enjoy many things.

Ah, now we get to finding God - let's lose desires! How convenient.

Why does it have to be either/or? Why can't you do good for the world and also search for God?

How much do you know of Vedic philosophy? The souls and the material world are a manifestation of God's marginal potency. We are conflicted creatures! The material is our reality but we can go from one to the other. We are capable of choosing so remain here or to go from here.

The material world exists in maya. There will always be suffering and people will always be doing bad no matter if you try to influence it or not. Of course you can try to help, and of course you can influence. But you are never going to create a happy, peaceful planet because it doesn't work that way. People are here specifically because they have selfish desires and are in ignorance. Pain and suffering is inevitable. When you finally get sick of all the suffering, you turn to God. You really start to want to get the hell out of this trap of rebirth. So you begin on the path to realisation.

I don't think that being spiritual and wanting liberation would stop me from doing good in this world. Part of the journey to realisation is growing love for Everything, caring. Of course it would lead you to doing MORE good.

 

[nameless]

please don't misunderstand me - I love science and as they say, there are no wrong questions in science. Similarly I am here to pose some out of the box questions, maybe make you think. If you don't find them to your liking, as many posts on these kind of boards are, you simply move on. But If i can make you rethink a bit.

pls point out where i should rethink. The topic was "Interpretation of the Shastras", but i see your arguments got nothing to do with shasthras or the life the sages who wrote shasthras, thats why im denying your statements. Yes i can rethink keeping the shasthras aside, is that ok?

Regarding the Buddha or the sages, no doubt these were good people. The Buddha was a great man who chose to leave a life of comfort. He was bothered with questions and he tried his best to answer them.

according to your principle still they are selfish and wrong, since they did not help anyone financially.

As for the sages - let me digress a bit about the shastras - as I have originally stated there seems to be a bit of misinterpretation of these shastras. If you recall this is what I keep saying. We have found a treasure map and you are reading the clues and I am saying that you are reading the clues wrong. I feel like I am getting you out of your comfort zone?

if you feel so, pls point out any of the wrongly interpreted verses or comments from Shasthras and make corrected interpretations on them proving we should desire physical gains for the attainment of moksha.

As for the sages being selfish, anyone who is working towards Mokshs is a bit selfish don't you think? After all, is that not a desire also? And whom does it benefit? One person.

Regarding the Buddha or the sages, no doubt these were good people. The Buddha was a great man who chose to leave a life of comfort. He was bothered with questions and he tried his best to answer them.

you should come to a conclusion.

 

[nameless]

This has nothing to do with the sages, but as long as we are talking about riches - if God came down and asked you to choose between these two:

1. A Thousand Mother Teresa's
2. A Thousand JRD Tata's

Which one would you choose? Personally I would choose the thousand Tata's because then the country would be rich! There would be no need for a 1000 mother teresa's. She didn't go to countries like England or Norway, she came to India, because the suffering was here.

War is not the greatest evil, poverty is.

A 1000 teresa's won't be able to help a poor suffering person. By the way she was helped by a lot of donations - donations from rich and the working - people who had jobs thanks to the likes of Tata

There is an old saying - Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, Teach a man to Fish and you feed him for his entire life! With a 1000 Teresa's you feed a man for a day, but with a 1000 Tata's you teach a man to fish!

If you believe in shasthras, it tell us for every suffering there is a reason, they must have done something wrong in the past, what made them to do wrong? lack of knowledge and mental impureness. There is a saying in ayurveda that it is always better to avoid becoming diseased than curing disease. What the people like mother teresa and Tatas does is that they just cures the problems occuring outside, by doing so the problem is not going to end. If you have a bad previous karma the suffering will come through one way or the other, it cannot be avoided. Also we will create more bad karmas and suffer more and more. Happenings in the outerworld are the products of inner world. So it is important to nullify past negative karmas and gain proper knowledge and the suffering ends there. Here lies the importance of spiritual guys, they show the path to remove all karmas and fills us with proper knowledge. Just impossible to compare the services of enlightened persons with those of Tatas or Teresa. The saying "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, Teach a man to Fish and you feed him for his entire life!" perfectly matches here, There wont be any Tata or Teresa in their next life to feed them, what they need is teaching from Spiritual masters so that they will become secure forever.

Not sure you will accept or not, even a saint sitting meditated in a cave is removing evils from this world. When a person in this world becomes pure it is also benefited to this whole world.

 

[RamaRaksha]

all i can say is getting moksha is not a desire. a person when involved in maya goes through a lot of suffering, and this is a cycle which keeps on repeating and the person keeps on suffering. hence a person who renounces all the attachments is free from all suffering, and hence his soul is free from the cycle of birth and death of its material bodies. his desire is not moksha but the result of his activities is moksha for his soul. such people are not selfish, they are actually selfless. hence they can actually make the world much better, because they wont think of themselves, they will think of others actually. one cannot attain moksha by renouncing all activities. the almighty has also prescribed a yoga known as Karma Yoga which has to be followed.

and i am sorry that my posts made you feel that i was angry. actually i am not good at english and my vocabulary is also not that good. many times it happened that i wrote many paragraphs in a post and at the time of posting it i reread it once more, and just to make it look good, i have cut down my post to a few lines(and sometimes not posted it at all, the reason behind my lower post counts). so forgive me for my ignorance in learning the language. and yeh i am not angry this time as well

Good post, again no need to apologize. I am glad that you mention it though, my views are a bit unconventional and I see people getting upset, but i think i am right because I keep asking questions with examples and so far no one has answered them honestly.

I am a bit grounded person - I describe myself as an Atheist Hindu. I am a bit of a skeptic when it comes to religion.

Regarding life being a hard and it being a suffering, please transport yourself back in time a few hundred years and imagine what life would be like. Of course it was hard. Take a simple example a headache. What do you do now? easy, just take a pill. well, back then you had to suffer in silence until it went away! Don't even think about an accident happening to you. Back then there were no pain killers, operations with blunt knives were done while you were fully conscious.

And the diseases! People in cold countries were fortunate - the cold kills a lot of bugs. But people living in hot countries like ours were beset by a lot of bugs. It was not uncommon for people to die in their early thirties!

That's where these concepts come from - life was hard, so this is suffering, and if you just blanked out your mind, brainlessly go thru life like a robot, you get release? To me this seems like an easy way out. Think about it, shouldn't getting to Moksha(union with God herself) be a bit more hard than this?

You are right about Karma Yoga - I wish more people would follow this path. But remember doing Karma Yoga means getting involved - getting to know the unfortunate people, their difficulties and then going about and try to solve those problems. It is not going to be easy and I think it is the right path to Moksha. Make this world a better place.

 

[RamaRaksha]

Why does it have to be either/or? Why can't you do good for the world and also search for God?

You are right, you can do both. My personal view is that simply helping a fellow man is enough. All the pujas, prayers and visits to the temple are for your benefit, God has no need for those. Be like an atheist – he is doing good because he wants to help, not because he thinks he is going to be rewarded in the next life or Moksha.

The material world exists in maya. There will always be suffering and people will always be doing bad no matter if you try to influence it or not. Of course you can try to help, and of course you can influence. But you are never going to create a happy, peaceful planet because it doesn't work that way. People are here specifically because they have selfish desires and are in ignorance. Pain and suffering is inevitable. When you finally get sick of all the suffering, you turn to God. You really start to want to get the hell out of this trap of rebirth. So you begin on the path to realisation.

I don't think that being spiritual and wanting liberation would stop me from doing good in this world. Part of the journey to realisation is growing love for Everything, caring. Of course it would lead you to doing MORE good.

As for suffering, this is where I disagree. My understanding of the concept of Karma & Rebirth is that God is asking us to take ownership of the world that we live in. Today we are faced with the prospect of a warming planet, millions might one day die. It’s not God doing this to us, it’s just us making a mess of things. And I don’t believe turning to God is the answer. All God can do is to give us guidance and encouragement. God Krishna did not fight the Mahabharata war, all he did was advice the pandavas. We broke it, we need to fix it.

Take 2 countries for example: Nigeria and Japan. Nigeria has oil, nice weather, can grow its own food, yet is dirt poor. Japan has no oil, terrible weather, no natural resources to speak of, yet is a rich, happy country.

If you keep saying that pain and suffering is inevitable, then you are making that a reality. It’s in your hands whether you make a Nigeria or a Japan.

I wouldn’t dismiss desires like that – when you do that, you are basically denying yourself as a human being. I have given many examples of how desires affect the world around us. Care to comment on the shirt example that I gave a few posts back?

 

[RamaRaksha]

If you believe in shasthras, it tell us for every suffering there is a reason, they must have done something wrong in the past, what made them to do wrong? lack of knowledge and mental impureness. There is a saying in ayurveda that it is always better to avoid becoming diseased than curing disease. What the people like mother teresa and Tatas does is that they just cures the problems occuring outside, by doing so the problem is not going to end. If you have a bad previous karma the suffering will come through one way or the other, it cannot be avoided. Also we will create more bad karmas and suffer more and more. Happenings in the outerworld are the products of inner world. So it is important to nullify past negative karmas and gain proper knowledge and the suffering ends there. Here lies the importance of spiritual guys, they show the path to remove all karmas and fills us with proper knowledge. Just impossible to compare the services of enlightened persons with those of Tatas or Teresa. The saying "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, Teach a man to Fish and you feed him for his entire life!" perfectly matches here, There wont be any Tata or Teresa in their next life to feed them, what they need is teaching from Spiritual masters so that they will become secure forever.

Not sure you will accept or not, even a saint sitting meditated in a cave is removing evils from this world. When a person in this world becomes pure it is also benefited to this whole world.

I don't know if I had posted this before but my understanding of Karma & Rebirth is a bit different.

First I hate the very concept of Hell - God using a whip on human flesh (The taliban recently tied up a poor girl and gave her lashings), God using other forms of torture (recently read a story on sons of saddam husain who used to torture people for pleasure) - is simply abhorent to me, as I think it is to you.

To me to say that karma is some sort of punishment is like using another word for hell.

First of all, let's think of the diff types of religions. Abrahamic religions are King religions - God made in the image of a King. A King issues orders, commands and passes judgements. There is no democracy here, his word is the law. Down on your knees, you fear the king, you are nothing but a subject or a slave.

Hinduism is a Teacher faith. God is our guru on the path to Moksha. A Teacher encourages her students to engage in vigorous discussion, look at an issue from various viewpoints and respect differing opinions. Democracy in action. Note: This is why abrahamic pakistan keeps floundering from one despot to another while Hindu India is a shining democracy.

As I was saying, A Teacher is there to instruct, ecourage and correct, never to punish. To me each life is like sitting in God’s classroom, this is our opportunity to learn. Moksha comes to those who are enlightened, enlightenment comes from knowledge.

Your understanding of Moksha seems a bit different. I hope you won’t get angry, but you seem to see this as a math problem. Good and Bad Karma’s canceling each other until you get to zero and then you get Moksha? Bad Karma giving us some sort of punishment? Good karma and we get rewarded? Where does enlightenment come in?

I don’t believe you can nullify negative Karmas. If you drink and get behind the wheel of your car and cause an accident and kill people, there is nothing you can do to nullify what you did. And you shouldn’t try to. God wants you to learn from this incident, she is teaching you a lesson. If you learned your lesson right, you stop drinking, you help the wounded as well as those unfortunate people caught in a similar situation.

As for the saint in a cave, you read me right, lol. I think it is a huge waste, he is out to get Moksha for himself, the rest of the world be damned. Meanwhile a Mother Teresa or a Mahatma Gandhi strove to make this a better world. They were not selfishly thinking of themselves.

 

[RamaRaksha]

They are holding their scriptures, their holy scriptures. They are only fingers pointing to the moon – where is the moon?

This is your proverb. Can you tell me what it is saying? Maybe this will make you understand where I was going with my thread.

 

[RamaRaksha]

Originally Posted by Madhuri http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...etation-shastras-post1710053.html#post1710053
Why does it have to be either/or? Why can't you do good for the world and also search for God?
Originally Posted by anupj http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...etation-shastras-post1709418.html#post1709418
the almighty has also prescribed a yoga known as Karma Yoga which has to be followed.
This is a question for you both, regarding Karma Yoga and doing Good. Are you saying you have not come across anyone whose family is suffering because the bread winner is out of a job? Can I ask you to tell me how jobs are created?

 

[Madhuri]

Originally Posted by Madhuri
Why does it have to be either/or? Why can't you do good for the world and also search for God?
Originally Posted by anupj
the almighty has also prescribed a yoga known as Karma Yoga which has to be followed.
This is a question for you both, regarding Karma Yoga and doing Good. Are you saying you have not come across anyone whose family is suffering because the bread winner is out of a job? Can I ask you to tell me how jobs are created?

The path of Realisation does not require one to give up theier material life and duty. To stop working or functioning in society is against Krishna's teachings in the Gita. The point is to do everything with love, affection and God consciousness. When we become Realised, we leave the material world for the Spiritual.

 

[Madhuri]

As for suffering, this is where I disagree. My understanding of the concept of Karma & Rebirth is that God is asking us to take ownership of the world that we live in. Today we are faced with the prospect of a warming planet, millions might one day die. It’s not God doing this to us, it’s just us making a mess of things. And I don’t believe turning to God is the answer. All God can do is to give us guidance and encouragement. God Krishna did not fight the Mahabharata war, all he did was advice the pandavas. We broke it, we need to fix it.

Take 2 countries for example: Nigeria and Japan. Nigeria has oil, nice weather, can grow its own food, yet is dirt poor. Japan has no oil, terrible weather, no natural resources to speak of, yet is a rich, happy country.

If you keep saying that pain and suffering is inevitable, then you are making that a reality. It’s in your hands whether you make a Nigeria or a Japan.

I wouldn’t dismiss desires like that – when you do that, you are basically denying yourself as a human being. I have given many examples of how desires affect the world around us. Care to comment on the shirt example that I gave a few posts back?

I disagree, I have a very different view of vedic teachings. I believe in helping this world as much as possible while also trying to develop my spiritual consciousness. But the vedas clearly speak of the nature of this world. It goes in cycles or better and worse. We can try to help, and we will make a difference, but the material world (as long as it is material) will keep recycling greed and suffering. Humans are generally selfish creatures by nature and that is why suffering is inevitable. But I do believe that we can improve the conditions to some extent.

That's just my perspective and opinion. It is based both in scripture and independent thought.

Sorry to do this, but would you be able to repost the 'shirt' example? I can't seem to find or remember it unfortunately.

 

[nameless]

@ RamaRaksha

would like to know your understanding of karma.