Rahu chasing the Moon... literal or allegorical? Irrelevant!

[Guest guest]

 

no, I am not a Hare Krishna sadhu.

ISKCON love?

wow...... you must be innocent.

just keep away and stay like that.

 

ISKCON is a house or horrors since 1977.

 

stay clear.......

 

Really? But i mean the original ..What about that? What about Chaitanya mahaprabhus teachings? I respected Him as the Avtaar of Bhagwan. Surely greatness of Him must be existing somwhere in some form of Satsnag today? !!

 

JAy Swaminarayan

[Guest guest]

There are bad apples everywhere.. But take the good. For everything else there is shri Krishna. All Glories to Him.

 

Jay Swaminarayan

[Guest guest]

 

 

They see the universe in terms of planes of existence, not in terms of linear distances between gross forms of matter.

 

So, maybe to you this topic is useless or worse than useless but there are some of us who need a logical explanation that can establish that the Bhagavatam is NOT an archaic, primitive book filled with superstitious misconceptions about the structure of the solar system.

 

I think I have found my answer.

I have faith the Bhagavatam is the most advanced spiritual understanding of the universe that mankind has ever known.

 

 

 

 

So you believe that a man is fried in oil if he pollutes good food with bad when he is in Booloka?

So you believe all the punishments meted out in Bagavatham to be real or allegorical?

[Guest guest]

 

I don't remember what happened 4 years ago.

They were less tolerant back then and it was easy to get banned unless you acted like a jellyfish in a bucket of jello.

 

They have banned many Hare Krishna devotees.

 

Hare Krishna devotees can be very opinionated and strong-minded.

 

The moderators wanted it to be an orgy of love and brotherhood.

 

After 5 years I guess they have finally realized it will never be that.

 

If they banned all us troublemakers the forum would go silent and nobody would have anybody to pick on anymore.

 

They should pay me for being the whipping boy on this forum...

 

 

Well look at who is talking about being opinionated,you call people who post as GUESTS as creeps and you call Hare Krsnas being opinionated,dont lie to us,you must have tried to mislead people or abuse them if they didnt listen to your lectures..

[Guruvani]

 

So you believe that a man is fried in oil if he pollutes good food with bad when he is in Booloka?

So you believe all the punishments meted out in Bagavatham to be real or allegorical?

I believe that in his next life he will become the same animal he fried in oil, get slaughtered himself and get fried in oil.

Finger-lickin' good........

 

Whether it is allogorical or not is not so important.

The fact is that Karma dishes out these punishments.

Allegorical?

No, that is just the way that self-realized sages see things.

 

They see it all differently than you see it with your gross sense pereception.

[theist]

 

Surely greatness of Him must be existing somwhere in some form of Sat snag today? !!

 

Sat snag. LOL Too often the case I am afraid.

[Guest guest]

i meant satsang

[theist]

 

i meant satsang

 

Yeah I know. You are unfamilar with the term Fruedian slip or you would have gotten the little joke. So much of what passes for satsang is really a snag in our attempt to understand the eternal.

 

Anyway look up Fruedian slip if interested.

[Danielle Field]

I read a book called Hindu Encounters with Modernity that I bought from the Soho street temple in London which helped me to reconcile the disparity between material science and the Bhagavatam. It is about Bhaktivinode Thakur's successful attempt to bring a rational empiric sense to the more superstitious interpretations of the Bhagavatam. Its about much more than that also and I strongly recommend you read it. This is a thorny issue and not one that devotees should be rowing about. And Guruvani, I strongly recommend that if you are trying to spread the light of the bhagavat in the world that you don't make the gross mistake of telling people not to read it because they are impure. you've gone way off the mark there I'm afraid and I am proof positive Prabhupada wouldn't approve.

[theist]

 

I read a book called Hindu Encounters with Modernity that I bought from the Soho street temple in London ...

 

Wonderful book.

[Guruvani]

 

I read a book called Hindu Encounters with Modernity that I bought from the Soho street temple in London which helped me to reconcile the disparity between material science and the Bhagavatam. It is about Bhaktivinode Thakur's successful attempt to bring a rational empiric sense to the more superstitious interpretations of the Bhagavatam. Its about much more than that also and I strongly recommend you read it. This is a thorny issue and not one that devotees should be rowing about. And Guruvani, I strongly recommend that if you are trying to spread the light of the bhagavat in the world that you don't make the gross mistake of telling people not to read it because they are impure. you've gone way off the mark there I'm afraid and I am proof positive Prabhupada wouldn't approve.

These fools have been saying that the Bhagavatam says that the Earth is flat.

I don't see that it does and I have asked them to show me where the Bhagavatam says the Earth is flat but they can't seem to produce the evidence.

If they persist to make up false allegations against the Bhagavatam to discredit it as much as they can, then I will still hold my view that they would be better off to leave it alone rather then get into it and then make up false allegations about what it says.

 

No. I don't agree.

If they become offensive to the Bhagavatam by reading it, they would be better off to leave it alone and read another book that they can accept.

[Danielle Field]

If they're saying that the Bhagavatam says the Earth is flat then I guess they haven't even looked at the front cover let alone read it. I'm just poking my nose in I suppose. Maybe they're just trying to get a rise out of you. Best to ignore them. Have a look at that book though. Its by Shukavak Dasa. It really reorientated by thinking, anyway. Good luck.

[Guruvani]

 

If they're saying that the Bhagavatam says the Earth is flat then I guess they haven't even looked at the front cover let alone read it. I'm just poking my nose in I suppose. Maybe they're just trying to get a rise out of you. Best to ignore them. Have a look at that book though. Its by Shukavak Dasa. It really reorientated by thinking, anyway. Good luck.

I prefer not to read those books by Shukavak or the others.

I want to study it my own way and see what I can find myself.

 

I just study the Bhagavatam as given by Srila Prabhupada and try to get my own insight from his words.

 

Sridhar Maharaja gave some nice insight into it as well and his line of thinking is very deep.

 

Basically, I follow that kind of thinking of Sridhar Maharaja.

 

The Vedic rishis see the universe from a higher platform.

The 5th Canto is other-dimensional. It really doesn't deal with the universe in astronomical terms but in terms of different degrees and qualities of consciousness.

 

So, I agree with some who say that the distances in the 5th canto relate to planar distances, yet I am not so sure that I agree with their particular concept of plane.

These scientific devotees use the term plane as it is a mathematical conception, but I use the term as it is also a metaphysical term.

 

So, that is the difference; metaphysically planar, not mathematically planar.

 

There is no other way to understand the distances given in the 5th canot of Srimad Bhagavatam.

 

That is how I adjust it and it makes sense to me in that way.

 

I don't buy into the scientific devotees theory that a mathematically planar equasion can adjust the disparity between the planetary distances given in the Bhagavatam and the distances calculated by modern methods. That theory cannot solve the disparity.

 

Metaphysically planar is the only concept that really answers it satisfactorally for me. Considering that the Vedic sages were also great mystics, I think it is a very logical conclusion.

[Guest guest]

Do you hold any degrees at all that qualify you in this regard, other than reading a few chapters in Hare Krishna books?

 

Perhaps you can hold a lecture series at the Harvard University Department of Astronomy, I'm sure they would be eager to hear!

[Guruvani]

 

Do you hold any degrees at all that qualify you in this regard, other than reading a few chapters in Hare Krishna books?

 

Perhaps you can hold a lecture series at the Harvard University Department of Astronomy, I'm sure they would be eager to hear!

 

that is the point.

you have missed the whole concept of Srimad Bhagavatam.

 

It's not about astronomy at all.

 

It's about the nature of being and planes of consciousness.

 

Vyasadeva and Sukadeva were not Gaudiyas.

They were mystic sages.

 

Sukadeva himself travelled to the Sun planet to see the Sun God.

 

The Universal Form described by Sukadeva has a mystical basis.

It is not about astronomy from the empiric viewpoint.

[theist]

 

that is the point.

you have missed the whole concept of Srimad Bhagavatam.

 

It's not about astronomy at all.

 

It's about the nature of being and planes of consciousness.

 

Vyasadeva and Sukadeva were not Gaudiyas.

They were mystic sages.

 

Sukadeva himself travelled to the Sun planet to see the Sun God.

 

The Universal Form described by Sukadeva has a mystical basis.

It is not about astronomy from the empiric viewpoint.

 

Actually you miss the point Guruvani which is the one I tried to address by starting this thread. The old ideas of astronomy held in vedic times simply are not correct. We have been told that the universe is something five billions miles across. That is not having anything to do with planes of consciousness it is just a figure now understood to be so small as to be ludicrous. But we moderns have the advantage of strong telescopes which they did not. Now that doesn't mean the modern astronomers are correct in what they say either as our vision even through telescopes is still extremely limited.

 

The real point is that it is irrelevant where the Moon is in relation to the earth and the sun.

 

And the only planes of consciousness that are relevant do not pertain to the position of the universal form of the Lord which we have been told is imaginary anyway, but rather those planes of conscious from the Brahman effulgence on up to Bhagavan Sri Krsna.

 

Prabhupada said to "take the essence of the Bhagavatam". You have yet to identitfy that essence properly and are stuck on trivial matters like universal structure etc.

[Guruvani]

 

Prabhupada said to "take the essence of the Bhagavatam". You have yet to identitfy that essence properly and are stuck on trivial matters like universal structure etc.

 

so, your essence is that the Bhagavatam has some serious faults.

 

that is not the essence I find.

[Guest guest]

Which recension of the Bhagavatam are you referring to Guruvani..?

 

Surely you are aware of them being the scholar you are!

[Guruvani]

 

Which recension of the Bhagavatam are you referring to Guruvani..?

 

Surely you are aware of them being the scholar you are!

that would be Uddhava's.

why, which one are you thinking about?

[Guest guest]

"The old ideas of astronomy held in vedic times simply are not correct."

 

Why would people whose IQ are supposedly to be 2000+ have incorrect old ideas of astronomy? Makes no sense. Perhaps, if we considered Vedic books are seriously interpolated then that might be the answer to our doubts. I have read or heard of absolutely no acharya who proclaims the Vedas are the original verses.

 

There are so many silly verses this hypothesis is partially correct. I read in a Purana if you don't fast on Ekdashi or for some God's birthdate you will be damned to hell for an extremely long time. If the old ideas of astronomy in Vedic times are incorrect then God (Vyasa) is very fallible on a mundane topic. Really this subject should be 1+1 to him.

 

Anyway, the main question is why is astronomy being explained in a bhakti book?

[theist]

 

so, your essence is that the Bhagavatam has some serious faults.

 

that is not the essence I find.

 

As usual you try hard not to understand what anyone slse is actually saying so that you can argue. Grow up.

[Guest]

The Vedas are the original verses. Those that state other wise are fools amongst fools. Where did you hear that The Bhagvat is about bhakti alone?

 

The Vedas are apuruseya ("not human compositions"), being supposed to have been directly revealed, and thus are called shrutis ("what is heard").

 

Every word is correct. There is no mistake within it. It states many universes their measures etc. Modern science cannot even grasp the concept of this universe let alone the others.

[Guruvani]

 

 

Anyway, the main question is why is astronomy being explained in a bhakti book?

Sukadeva never said it was "astronomical".

 

He taught Maharaja Pariksit a way of thinking about the universe transcendentally.

 

It was never "astronomical" which is a system based upon empiric observations.

 

The Vedic sages related the universe in terms of consciousness, not in terms of empiric concepts of distance and relative position.

[Guest]

 

GURUVANI - As usual you try hard not to understand what anyone slse is actually saying so that you can argue. Grow up.

 

Why dont you grow up? Why should one HAVE TO understand or even accept the view of others if it goes agaisn tthe teachings of their own faith anyway?

 

I would personally not agree to anything that does such. Now if you dont liek the Bedas nor the Purans nor agree with any such scriptures then go elsewhere. If it dont fit with your basic understanding then fine. Whatever tickels your fancy.

 

Each tatva is described in such text. Now if modern science cannot even fathom it then its not the scriptures problems nor its followers. You wont to come on here talking ill of the Vedas.

 

FOOLS.

[theist]

 

Anyway, the main question is why is astronomy being explained in a bhakti book?

 

I have had the same question. What is essential is to take the bhakti from the bhakti book and not to obscess on anything else whether true or false.

 

The universe no matter how it is constructed is very great and that only speaks to the greatness of God. This understand is essential before reaching canto ten otherwise we will mistake Krsna's position in Krsna lila and take it cheaply.

 

In modern times I find the current scientific understanding(rather 100% correct or not) to be most wonderful testimonies to God's greatness.They offer a greater insight into the complexities of universal design then our old books do so I accept them as scriptures as much as the ancient sages writings, even if discovered and promoted by atheists.

 

"Strawberry fields (material world), nothing is real,

and nothing to get hung about"

 

Just take Krsna and leave the rest.