There are many practices in our culture which have proven health and environmental benefits; but explaining science...
There are many practices in our culture which have proven health and environmental benefits; but explaining science behind almost every practice is not only foolishness but laughable also.
Is the fact that the rituals and traditions i follow foster bonhomie in society and gives a chance to introspect rising above our ego, not good enough to follow them!?
We don't have to keep attaching intellectual-sounding gibberish logics to justify our rituals.
At a time when our culture was under threat, the fabric was revitalised by the scholars of Vedas and Vedanta like Sri Adi Shankaracharya, Sri Madhvacharya, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo Ghosh to name a few from different times.
But today, it seems that the "protector" tag is hijacked/mis-used by the politically motivated, ill-informed and worse-knowledge-ed people. Someone who seems to have never went through any of our scriptures.
The need of the time is the emergence of an articulate, credible, and professional voice that brings authentic, apolitical Hindu perspectives into the public sphere.
Is the fact that the rituals and traditions i follow foster bonhomie in society and gives a chance to introspect rising above our ego, not good enough to follow them!?
We don't have to keep attaching intellectual-sounding gibberish logics to justify our rituals.
At a time when our culture was under threat, the fabric was revitalised by the scholars of Vedas and Vedanta like Sri Adi Shankaracharya, Sri Madhvacharya, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo Ghosh to name a few from different times.
But today, it seems that the "protector" tag is hijacked/mis-used by the politically motivated, ill-informed and worse-knowledge-ed people. Someone who seems to have never went through any of our scriptures.
The need of the time is the emergence of an articulate, credible, and professional voice that brings authentic, apolitical Hindu perspectives into the public sphere.
agreed, but i recommend everyone to follow these customs only after knowing the truth behind them, and that could only come as a revelation from reading and understanding vedas.
ReplyDeleteThe great learners of Vedas you mentioned were indeed trying to undo the work of some very shrewd predecessors who made the study of vedas a classist thing limited to few varnas, as also defined by them. Which meant what the common people got passed down was a list of do's dont's and rules and tricks to live with, without any understanding of the concepts behind them.
The work of Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo etc is still unfinished, while common people have restricted themselves to ratifying Ramayana and performing stipulated rituals, they are still in dark about what the rituals and customs actually mean, and the treasure of knowledge the vedas contain.
krishna v. shukla we as humans have limited means to attain knowledge. We should be practising what our families (forefathers) have been doing, and try to find out the reason behind the same. It should not be other way around, where we understand everything and then start following, by that time our life would have ended already. This is my humble opinion. The first step in starting to learn, is keeping faith. The faith will not let anyone down as it is universal, it does not give preferences to individuals.
ReplyDeleteIt depends on individuals. I personally investigate first the rational behind a ritual first and then accept it.
ReplyDeleteBut the point here is that the importance of rituals and cultural activities are being made a mockery of by the people who try to justify them with pseudo science. like this:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/107670848007097254568/posts/iswJBaTwDsq
There is nothing wrong in worshipping a stone, plant or a tree or doing anything harmless just out of faith.
Also, when one searches Hindu in Google communities and pages, most of them (>95% i would say) are about politics. This is a sad state which i think should be changed.
Developing faith in something is also very important especially when we venture into something practical... be it a lab experiment or spirituality (experimenting within).
ReplyDeleteI take Upanishads and Gitas as a book of words of Rishis who ventured into the great realm within and came out to share the knowledge.
A Hindu sanyasi told me once that we should believe something if it satisfies 3 conditions: it is logical, it is something you personally feel and it is mentioned in scriptures. If any one of the first 2 doesn't satisfy, look for the third as the final word.
I definitely agree.
ReplyDeleteSunil Yadav:
ReplyDeleteScience means the perfect unbiased analysis of all the items and concepts of the imaginable creation. We welcome science as far as the path of the analysis is concerned. At the end, the right conclusion should be drawn and some scientists draw the wrong conclusion, which is in the opposite direction to the right conclusion.
Science is like the straight tusk of the tree and these two conclusions are like the two branches generating from the tip of the tusk in the opposite directions. We also travel along the tusk in line with the atheists. We differ from the atheist at the end of the analysis only. Atheists take the direction of the wrong conclusion and we take the direction of the right conclusion. Our right conclusion is that no item of this imaginary creation is God and no concept related to this creation can be the concept of God. The wrong conclusion of the atheists is that nothing exists beyond this imaginable creation and hence God does not exist.
We use the analysis of science to negate every item of the creation to be God (Neti Neti-Veda). Science is the indirect knowledge of God by which we reject the entire creation to be God and conclude that God, the creator, is beyond the creation. The direct knowledge of God is that God is beyond this creation and more than this no information of God is possible. We can show you what is not God and we cannot show you what is God.
Space is the first item of the creation, which is not the absence of any imaginable item. Space is only very subtle invisible energy. Bend of space spoken in science proves this. There cannot be bending of nothing. God is the generator of this space or subtle energy. Veda says that God is generator of space and in another place says that God is the generator of energy. Both these statements are one and the same since space is subtle energy. The generator of space cannot have space in it. This means that there is no space in God. This results in saying that God is beyond spatial dimensions. We can never imagine that, which has no spatial dimensions. Hence, God is unimaginable. The atheist may ask proof for the existence of unimaginable and say that unimaginable without proof does not exist. One proof is the existence of unimaginable events called miracles in this world. The atheist may discard this proof saying that the miracle is only magic. The magic looks like miracle but on deep observation and analysis can be disproved.
But, there are certain unimaginable events, which cannot be disproved even on deepest observations and deepest analysis. The atheist says that the magic of yesterday called as miracle is proved today and hence all the miracles will be proved as magic by tomorrow. But, this tomorrow never comes since the atheist is not stipulating the time gap for this tomorrow. Yesterday, you could not touch the roof of the house by your hand. Today, you touched the roof by practicing the high jump. Based on this, you are saying that you will continue the practice of high jump and touch the sky by tomorrow. We have experienced the today, which is present after the past yesterday, but this tomorrow is never experienced by us even though we waited up to the end of our life. Your promise of the time gap has utterly failed.
The reason is that the sky can never be touched by you. But the roof is touched by you because it is touchable after certain practice. Today, you can touch the upper horizontal log of the door even without practice. By this, you can conclude three categories: a) touchable today, b) touchable by tomorrow after certain efforts and c) untouchable on any day. The three corresponding items of the creation to the above three categories are: a) visible-imaginable, b) invisible-imaginable and c) invisible-unimaginable. The ordinary person belongs to the first item. The scientist belongs to the second item. The philosopher belongs to the third item.
ReplyDeleteIf you are not willing to accept the genuine miracles, there is one outstanding miracle, which is beyond your understanding. You cannot deny this since it is referred by science as infinity. This creation or universe is infinite with unimaginable boundary. This is practically experienced through not only our eyes but also through your powerful telescopes. You have to accept the existence of unimaginable indicated by the word infinite.
This universe is created by God, which is emerged from the God. When you touch the boundary of this imaginable universe, it means, you have touched the unimaginable God. There are only two items here. One is the unimaginable God and the other is the imaginable universe. The joint line between these two items cannot be a third item, which is different from the two items since only two items exist. Hence the end of one item means the beginning of the other item. When you have reached the end of the ocean, you have touched the beginning of the land.
Therefore, if you have reached the end of imaginable universe, you must touch the beginning of unimaginable God. Since unimaginable can never be touched by anybody, which is even beyond imagination, it means that you can never reach the end of the imaginable universe. This is a practical scientific example that has to be accepted by any human being as a proof for the existence of the unimaginable, which is called by the word ‘God’ by us.
Once the atheist accepts the unimaginable God, further extensions of this concept like human incarnation etc can be easily introduced. When God has unimaginable nature or capability to do any unimaginable action, such unimaginable God enters a specific human form for a specific program like preaching the spiritual knowledge that gives right direction for the spiritual aspirants to become human incarnation.
When the capability of the unimaginable God cannot be questioned, you cannot oppose the probability of the concept of human incarnation of God especially when there is a genuine need. Hence, the establishment of the concept of unimaginable God is the main effort and other concepts become easy. Hence, Shankara tried to establish the existence of God in the minds of the atheists. Further concepts of worship of God etc were easily established by the followers like Ramanuja and Madhva.