shvu Posted November 13, 2000 Report Share Posted November 13, 2000 Q: So this pursuit has to go? UG : Don't say it should go. Wanting selfishness to go is part and parcel of the selfish pursuit of a more pleasurable state. Both the spiritual goal and the search for happiness are the same. Both are essentially selfish, pleasurable pursuits. If that understanding is somehow there in you, then you will not use the energy in that direction at all. You know, I've been everywhere in the wold, and have found that people are exactly the same. There is no difference at all. Becoming is the most important thing in the world for everybody -- to become something. They all want to become rich, whether materially or spiritually, it is exactly the same. Don't divide it; the so-called spiritual is the materialistic. You may think you are superior because you go to temple and do puja, but the woman there is doing puja in the hope of having a child. She wants something, so she goes to the temple. So do you; it is exactly the same. For sentimental reasons you go, but in time it will become routine and become abhorrent to you. What I am trying to point out is simply this: your spiritual and religious activities are basically selfish. That is all I am pointing out. You go to the temple for the same reason you go other places -- you want some result. If you don't want anything there is no reason to go to the temple. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shvu Posted November 13, 2000 Author Report Share Posted November 13, 2000 Q: You are ruthlessly condemning whatever people have said so far. You may, in time, also be condemned and blasted for what you are saying. UG : If you have the guts, I will be the very first to salute you. But you must not rely on your holy books -- the Bhagavad Gita or Upanishads. You must challenge what I am saying without the help of your so-called authorities. You just don't have the guts to do that because you are relying upon the Gita, not upon yourself. That is why you will never be able to do it. If you have that courage, you are the only person who can falsify what I am saying. A great sage like Gowdapada can do it, but he is not here. You are merely repeating what Gowdapada and others have said. It is a worthless statement as far as you are concerned. So don't escape into meaningless generalizations. You must have the guts to disprove what I am saying on your own. What I am saying must be false for you. You can only agree or disagree with what I am saying according to what some joker has told you. That is not the way to go about it. If others have said the same thing I am saying, why are you asking questions and searching for solutions here? You are merely looking for new, better methods. I am not going to help you. I am saying, "Don't bother about solutions; try to find out what the problem is." Why in the hell are you looking for another solution? You will make out of what I am saying another solution, to be added to your list of solutions, which are all useless when it comes to actually solving your problems. If anyone says there is a way out, he is not an honest fellow. He is doing it for his own self-aggrandizement, you may be sure. He simply wants to market a product and hopes to convince you that it is superior to other products on the market. If another man comes along and says that there is no way out, you make of that another method. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
srix29 Posted November 13, 2000 Report Share Posted November 13, 2000 I agree with shvu. There are no opposites as such, except those created semantically for our existence, the absolute is nothing but 'what is' and we should learn to face it. Condemning man as sin as in some religions and trying to 'become' pure or chaste or any of the opposites is merely an attempt to anesthetise the fact and shy away from it. As long as we learn through our conditioned mind and environments, regardless of the source of conditioning, books, scriptures, school or whatever...you only try to modify your present state which is not better in anyway than the past , as you still work from the same grounds, without understanding the ground or questioning it to learn for yourself. Shvu...I agree Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
viji_53 Posted November 14, 2000 Report Share Posted November 14, 2000 Dear shvu, Do you have faith in God? or are you an atheist?. Every body can not be mature enough to attain God with out any wishes. Lord Krishna in Gita also says we can attain Him through 3 ways. In the 18th chapter only He says we should sacrifice even the wish of attaining Him. So there is nothing wrong if people do prayer for some purpose. As they progress in the spiritual path all the material wishes fade away. That is how we can know we are progressing or not. If our desires do not fade away then we are not at all progressing in our pursuit of attaining God. In the 11th chapter Krishna shows His viswaroopa & asks Arjuna only in the 18th chapter to sacrifice even the wish of attainig salvation. Progress in spiritual path is always slow for people who live in materialistic world. Only slowly we can overcome the desires that too only by HIS grace. Hari Bhol! viji Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
animesh Posted November 14, 2000 Report Share Posted November 14, 2000 If we want to achieve God, there is nothing wrong in wishing to achieve him. We can not say that we should achieve God and that wishing to achieve God is bad. Because these two statements contradict each other. I opened this site because I wished to see the latest postings; I am typing this comment because I wished to do so. Before doing anything we have to wish to do it. So long we are conscious we are always doing something. This means that so long we are conscious we are always wishing something. Since wishing something is a must, we can not say "don't wish anything". So we should make distinction between what to wish and try for and what not to. If achieving something is good, then wishing to achieve that is also good. If achieving God is good, then wishing to achieve Him is also good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
animesh Posted November 14, 2000 Report Share Posted November 14, 2000 Though I agree that there are very few people who visit temple because they wish to attain God. Most of them go to temples for other reasons. Example: some woman wants a child, somebody wants to do well in an exam, somebody goes to temple because someone in his family (e.g. mother) is not well (there was a time when I used to go to temple for this) and for multitude of other reasons. I do not know whether it should be considered good or bad to go to temple with all these desires. But even if it is bad, I have absolutely no right to condemn people who do so because I have myself done this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
animesh Posted November 14, 2000 Report Share Posted November 14, 2000 Sorry for putting a third comment in such a short time. But I am putting a comment as and when it is coming to my mind. So, hope that u will not get too bored :-) It is wrong to say that just because all people want to become something, we should not divide and should consider them exactly the same. Because if we consider them as exactly the same, then we have to consider a person who does many good things for poor people and a person who kills people for money as exactly the same. So, we must divide. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shvu Posted November 14, 2000 Author Report Share Posted November 14, 2000 Sorry for the confusion here. Those answers by UG were to a person who asked 'How to become selfless ?' He points out that it is not possible to become selfless. Wanting to 'become selfess' is by itself a selfish activity. And there is nothing wrong in being selfish. That is our true nature. Religion and society step in and say 'You should not be selfish', which is a fictitous state. In UG's words, Be selfish, stay selfish. Charity is selfishness, wanting enlightenment is selfishness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ggohil Posted November 14, 2000 Report Share Posted November 14, 2000 Many people posses the mastery of executing clever arguments. They appear to have a neck of developing effective arguments for or against an issue at will. The arguments are clever enough to withstand great deal of debates, hence they create excitement. However, in nature they are nothing but just clever arguments. In truth they neither seem to resolve or conclude anything. Our knowledge will always be limited if the source of the knowledge is our senses. Our conclusions will only be as good as the analysis we performed. Until the next person provides yet a another "CLEVER ARGUMENT". Then we will change our minds, AGAIN. By default, we as a human beings are just not capable of ascertaining the absolute truth, if the conclusions are based solely on our senses. Personally, I prefer to listen to Sri Krsna. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shvu Posted November 15, 2000 Author Report Share Posted November 15, 2000 Hello Ggohil, -------- However, in nature they are nothing but just clever arguments. In truth they neither seem to resolve or conclude anything. -------- They may help some people out. But the fact remains that the Jnana marga [Path of knowledge] appeals to very few people. -------- Our knowledge will always be limited if the source of the knowledge is our senses. --------- May I point out that the source of all our knowledge, at all times, is our senses only ? -------- By default, we as a human beings are just not capable of ascertaining the absolute truth, if the conclusions are based solely on our senses. ------- There is no other way of gathering information, is there ? So all our conclusions are based on the information that we have and the way our intellect interprets it. -------- Personally, I prefer to listen to Sri Krsna. -------- Personally, we all prefer that which we find appealing, logical and attractive. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ggohil Posted November 15, 2000 Report Share Posted November 15, 2000 My view on Selfishness If one desires to help some one with no desire of personal gain, can the this be considered Selfish? In material world one may chose to secure what he desires hence selfish. However, on spiritual platform one only serves, can this be considered selfish? An activity which is universally beneficial and elevates one to the world of love and devotion, can this be considered selfish? A self realized person free from the material entanglement is left with nothing, but Sri Krsna, Narayan, Vishnu, or Ramchandra. etc. Since all can achieve this, can this be considered to be selfish.? In the desert, if it is raining every where and one decides to open mouth to quench his thirst, can this be considered selfish? A path to self-realization is difficult and the benefits are not obvious or immediate, so how is the decision to follow this path be considered selfish? Going to Mandir and asking for something in return, taking up spiritual path etc are a material based activities, hence on a material platform it may be argued it to be selfish. The rules of the material world must be different from the rules of the spiritual world. Defining the activity as selfish or not on material platform can only be valid on material platform. In spiritual world the meaning of the word selfishness (in this context) must be abstract. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ggohil Posted November 15, 2000 Report Share Posted November 15, 2000 Hare Krsna: Sri Shvu, They may help some people out. But the fact remains that the Jnana marga [Path of knowledge] appeals to very few people. ------------- They may help some people, but for how long. Until some one comes with a another clever idea. Failure of Jana Marga’s appeal does not make it invalid. -------- May I point out that the source of all our knowledge, at all times, is our senses only ? -------- Yes, but my point was that our sense principally picked this knowledge from Vedas, the senses did not create it at will. ------- Personally, we all prefer that which we find appealing, logical and attractive. -------------------- Absolutely, Hari Bole Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
srix29 Posted November 15, 2000 Report Share Posted November 15, 2000 Dear friends animesh, viji, gg and shvu Lets not get pretty animated about this discussion. It is really nice to read all the view points, but if I have understood shvu correctly, and without quoting or relating to it out of context - in general is there any thing called as 'becoming' or 'attaining' or 'achieving', which involves time and the subject distinctly checking or evaluating the process. Devotees of krishna see visions of krishna, they dont see zoraster, and neither the followers of Allah see Jesus, so as long as the prism is there and the conditioned mind looks through it, you will,see, attain or achieve only that which the conditioning has taught you, is it possible to come out of this conditioning and live life from moment to moment. Ultimately the saint Ramana Maharishi also says the same, the 'vichara marga' I am not propogating any specific method or school as I am not that enlightened as many of you are, and cannot quote any sanskrit verses, pardon my ignorance, but without any signs, or symbols decorating our body and mind, can we live, respect, see each and every moment as it is, without the attributes, which we associate with our so called 'knowledge' which we are proud to accumulate. I am not referring to knowledge or building bridges or engineering, but psycological evolution is not there, let us not delude ourselves, by saying so. I may not be a frequent visitor and add to this, but what I find is that people generally start to investigate from a conclusion, and then there is no investigation or awareness at all. It is a stale mind which modifies what it has learnt from books, or teachers and quotes them differently. Let us do away with semantics, and try to live and die from moment to moment good luck friends Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shvu Posted November 16, 2000 Author Report Share Posted November 16, 2000 Hello Ggohil, ------ They may help some people, but for how long?Until some one comes with a another clever idea. ------- If the latter person's idea is clever and sounds more reasonable, then isn't it better? It can be considered as an advancement. ------ Failure of Jana Marga’s appeal does not make it invalid. -------- I did not understand this statement. ------------ Yes, but my point was that our sense principally picked this knowledge from Vedas, the senses did not create it at will. ------- The senser are incapable of creating any knowledge. They only serve as an interface through which any information can be acquired. So all knowledge that we have and can be had, is and will only be through the senses. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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