RoaringSilence
Active Member
New thread http://www.religiousforums.com/threads/does-karmyog-exclude-surrender-of-adharmic-action.187824/
for karmyog discussion.
for karmyog discussion.
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Is Kali the Hindu equivalent of Satan?
- Thread starter Terese
- Start date
Wonderful storyYes I completely agree, service to others is a very high ideal. But IMO, helping someone's souls (spiritually) is always better than helping someone materially.
I totally concur. God has given the wisdom and discrimination to enable the dharmic choice. Often it is subtle. One of my Guru's Guru's Guru's oft quoted quips was, "Be of good cheer, my Dear," The spiral of positivity will do wonders for someone's spiritual life. I once heard a contemplative definition of what it means to be spiritual. It said, 'A spiritual person can uplift the spirit of others." So the every day basic goal is to be a spiritual person in this way. It doesn't even have to be direct relating with people in any way. The guy devotee who cares for the temple premises has people coming in to the temple and just feeling better because it has lifted the vibratory rate of the entire place. The devotee responsible may well have left for a rest. His seva leaves an impact on others regardless.
Satyamavejayanti
Well-Known Member
Namaste,
Satan or Arabic/urdu Shaytaan is not part of the Hindu tradition, Kali (yuga) is a metaphorical/personified way of explaining the decline in society, as many have given the 4 legs of Dharmah example which provides us a guide of what constitutes Dharmah in a age where the other legs may be lost, and rightfully only Satya is Dharmah in Kali yuga. The idea of Kali yuga is not that we must blame the times for any Adharmic Karm, but uphold Dharmah (Satya) to usher in the age of Satya (Satyuga).
Dhanyavad
Oh my lots happened during my sleep. Ok, i am now fully aware that Kali is not an 'adversary' of some sort. I don't agree with @StarryNightshade though on the topic of Kali Yuga. Just because we are going downhill, doesn't mean we stop doing everything good. It's just the cycle of change.
Subhankar Zac
Hare Krishna,Hare Krishna,
I'd say in my opinion, it's more like Mara of Buddhism that is born out of ones negative aspects.
When they are brought up with hate, excessive materialism and greed the people turn into those demons.
Christian Satan is a tempter, something that I reject. Wehave our destructive capacity and we cannot blame anyone for tempting us other than our arrogance and greed.
When they are brought up with hate, excessive materialism and greed the people turn into those demons.
Christian Satan is a tempter, something that I reject. Wehave our destructive capacity and we cannot blame anyone for tempting us other than our arrogance and greed.
Purusha
Member
Below link tries to explain something strange altogether
http://www.angelfire.com/empire/serpentis666/Name_of_Satan.html
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
Three words have been used. Asura, Danava and Rakshasa. Asura has been extensively used for Gods as well. There were very righteous, truthful and knowledgeable people among all the three types. Banasura, Bali, Kumbhakarna and Vibhishana represent the good. Even Ravana had many good qualities.
shivsomashekhar
Well-Known Member
I question the idea of ''going downhill". I would argue that the overall quality of human life has improved with time, with technical advancement and globalization.
The only argument one can offer for going downhill is the gloomy prediction laid out in some religious texts - which is clearly proven wrong by what we see in real life. I would also add (as I have stated earlier) that going uphill or downhill is something we can determine through observation and inference and therefore is not something that requires scriptural testimony.
For the bolded part, I'd argue that hypothetically he could exist. God is not just bunnies and rainbows, s/he is parasites that kill organisms.
Hinduism recognizes God in everything, not just the "nicer" parts. Good, bad or indifferent. Everything. Even the Asuras who are a rough-ish sort of equivalent to the Abrahamic version of the demons can be very religious, brave and noble. "Lesser Gods" can have a lot of flaws.
In many of our tales there is never anyone who is wholly good or wholly bad. There are people who fight on "God's side" who are seen as cowards, greedy or even disloyal.
There are those who fight against "God" who are seen in a much better light for their courage, honor and loyalty. Hell even Krishna it could be argued did some "not good things" for the greater good and he's an incarnation of the Lord no less.
One of the most sincere and revered forms of friendship comes in the form of Duyordhana and Karna from the Mahabharata. Duyordhana is sometimes seen as a personification of Kali (demon.) Karna has many faults. He has treated some ladies with disrespect and can be looked down upon or even revered depending on your interpretation. Karna even refused a request from Lord Krishna. And yet, the friendship both had earned them respect and there is a story that is supposed to illustrate loyalty. Karna was playing a game with Duyordhana's wife Bhanumati, who was loosing. Duyordhana entered the room and his wife stood up. Karna, not seeing his friend, misunderstood this act and thought the Queen was trying to get away because she was loosing. He snatched at her drape, which was studded with pearls and not knowing his strength it fell apart. Then Karna noticed his friend and was immediately embarrassed by such a display of disrespect and immodesty in front of his friend and with his friend's wife no less, readied himself for punishment. But Duyordhana trusting both his wife and friend implicitly without question, merely asked if he should pick up the pearls or pick them up and thread them back on as well.
So if a supposed personification of Kali (demon) is often used to illustrate the loyalty and dharma one must follow, then can Kali (demon) really be the equivalent of the Abrahamic version of Satan? Even the more sympathetic interpretations?
Not technologically, but spiritually. Obviously technology has improved, radically so.
shivsomashekhar
Well-Known Member
But how do we measure spiritual quality of the overall human race?
A lot more people know Krishna today than five hundred years ago due to the ability of people to travel worldwide and for spreading information. People live longer (due to advancement in medical tech), which gives them more time to engage in spiritual activity. I can find more examples, but this should make the point.
It is common that we as humans hold on to what is called the "golden age fantasy" - where we are inclined to look back at a time when life was more colorful, more exciting or in this case, more spiritual, than it is today.
Yes, that is true. But have you realised how easy it is to lie, cheat, just do bad things in general, than opposed to good things, which is a harder task to do in this world? Besides, in the Srimad Bhagavatam, it says that there will be a 10,000 year golden age at the start of the Kali Yuga. We don't know what will happen 5000 years later, but from what it says, it won't be pretty.
shivsomashekhar
Well-Known Member
The question is, how do we know that more people were doing this earlier than now?
As I have said elsewhere, traditionally, matters of Atman were limited to Sanyasins and old people The householder, the common man had superficial exposure to these subjects and for the most part - they had no time or interest to go any deeper.
This changed to some extent with the arrival of printing and later with neo-vedanta, which teaches that the main objective of Hinduism (they see it as one uniform religion) is to seek moksha - indicating that everyone (including householders and people of all ages) should be more focused on the Atman than material matters. This is a very new-age thing.
I am not aware that the Bhagavatam speaks of ten thousand years of golden age when Kali starts. I am a little confused. Are you saying that you agree that the quality of life has gotten better with time and things are not really going downhill after all (because we are still in the 10,000 year range)?
It was more natural to them. They could push desires more easily than us. I cannot say how, as all we have of that time are scriptures.
What i mean is that the first 10,000 years of the Kali Yuga is much better than the rest of the yuga. So yes, but we are still in the Kali Yuga.
As a computer analyst, one of the many, many things I do or tasked for is predictive analysis and trending – this could for example include predictive failure of computer storage components depending on factors as well inclusive of average room temperature, rate of I/O and many other things. Currently we are seeing a transformation from what was once called High Performance Computing to become common where huge arrays of Linux based CUDA smart front ends working in array send arithmetic and mathematical processing to external sets of GPUs instead of CPUs, the Graphics Processing Units stored in large numbers inside enclosures and chassis perform such mathematics based on graphics instead of 1 plus 1 or zero or one, waves and a new sort of math called Transcendental Math, so now the speed of such processing is 1,000 times faster and so too the reads/writes – thus all this goes into predictive FAILURE. Root cause.
So the wise sages of long ago could also use like analysis – on a larger scale. In the example of predictive storage failure, it is not that we wait and see the storage fail, but proven analysis can predict it PRIOR and thus the storage is REPLACED – given “anew” if you will. So these sages said in the Kali Yug, we will see humans EATING the embryos of their OWN BABIES. This is already happening – I know that for a fact, certain “rock stars” of the punk genre were in fact openly admitting to it and those who partook of such Kali Yug type eating of human embryo were witness and documented literally frying the embryo on a frying pan and eating.
So, this aspect of “presence” you called Kali (not Kali Maa) indeed can take a life and move about. Let me explain an example, in part this can happen due to “mass consciousness” and “high stress” et all. In the example of the documented wars in ancient Greece, where in the horror and peak of battle, suddenly Apollo appears, and the sages then said literally the mass mind of the soldiers under high stress becomes an actual force, alive, begins to move within the battlefield, and then actually is seen, and is seen as Apollo, and this is not just imagination – it is an actual force that then moves.
So comparing this Kali to Satan (again, NOT Kali Devi, I know what you are talking about) is like that and not too far removed. And yes, there is a “method to the madness”, a science, and a predictive analysis comes into play. One thing, this predictive analysis can have a benefit, it may not stop something from happening in the end, but before something “fails” it can be “replaced” – at least for the time being.
So the wise sages of long ago could also use like analysis – on a larger scale. In the example of predictive storage failure, it is not that we wait and see the storage fail, but proven analysis can predict it PRIOR and thus the storage is REPLACED – given “anew” if you will. So these sages said in the Kali Yug, we will see humans EATING the embryos of their OWN BABIES. This is already happening – I know that for a fact, certain “rock stars” of the punk genre were in fact openly admitting to it and those who partook of such Kali Yug type eating of human embryo were witness and documented literally frying the embryo on a frying pan and eating.
So, this aspect of “presence” you called Kali (not Kali Maa) indeed can take a life and move about. Let me explain an example, in part this can happen due to “mass consciousness” and “high stress” et all. In the example of the documented wars in ancient Greece, where in the horror and peak of battle, suddenly Apollo appears, and the sages then said literally the mass mind of the soldiers under high stress becomes an actual force, alive, begins to move within the battlefield, and then actually is seen, and is seen as Apollo, and this is not just imagination – it is an actual force that then moves.
So comparing this Kali to Satan (again, NOT Kali Devi, I know what you are talking about) is like that and not too far removed. And yes, there is a “method to the madness”, a science, and a predictive analysis comes into play. One thing, this predictive analysis can have a benefit, it may not stop something from happening in the end, but before something “fails” it can be “replaced” – at least for the time being.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
I cannot deny that we are moving away from 'dharma'. I have seen it happen during my life time. I blame the current political system for it.The saying goes 'Yatha raja, tatha praja'. People will act the way in which the rulers act.
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Source?
To be honest, I'm really not sure. Look at some of the past adharmic actions ... done wholeheartedly ... like wholesale torture, slavery, and God knows what else written out of history. Yes, most of this, as far as we know, was done by faiths outside of the dharmic family, but even within dharmic ones I'm not sure. For example, when all those massive stone temples were built, was it slaves or devotees who did all the manual labour?
I think some of the discrimination, (gender, class, race, age) looking at the broader picture has definitely seen improvement.
So in terms of getting worse or getting better, I'm on the fence, (leaning more to optimism though) due mainly to the vagueness of history. Even in more recent times, like the past 200 years, parents have been lamenting, "What is this world coming to?" for a few generations.
I think I might have been misunderstood. I wasn't saying that because of how things are we should stop doing good deeds; I was saying that some people use Kali Yuga as an excuse for why things are the way they are and then bemoan about how nothing can be done. Something that isn't too entirely different from some Christians talking about how the end times are here and then bemoaning about how things can't be done.