What is GOD?

[sandy]

Can any body tell me what is God? What is the defination of God? I do not want anybody who reply on the basis of his knowledge he has read in vedas or puranas. I want the answer from them who have actually experienced GOD.

 

[dzimmerm]

I can not answer your question given the restraints you have placed on potential answers.

 

I have experienced some kind of spirtual force but I would not want to guess as to what it was or what its overall effects could be.

 

I tend to be fairly skeptical and so I tend to doubt things that are purely subjective.

 

God would have to prove itself to me with non subjective actions. I also have fairly high standards as to what I would accept as God, therefore a petty, vengeful, deathdealing force would not be considered as God by me even if the proofs about its existence were solid.

 

Good luck in getting a reasonable answer.

 

dzimmerm

 

[Guest guest]

God was experienced by people who wrote the vedas...

 

If you wish to experience God, I have to tell you that you are experiencing God right now at this instance at this moment of your life.

 

WHy?- you are thinking about him.

 

Anyway, with out God we cannot exist just like with out the tree fruits cannot exist.

 

God is the tree, we are the fruits.

 

To know our true nature is what enlightenment is all about. To know that we are the servers of God and his people(which is every one) is the true enlightenment.

 

 

[theist]

You are correct in trying to go past mere book knowledge and parrot like responses. But that is no reason to reject what was written in holy books.

 

You ask for our experiences of God to be written down for you to contemplate when you address a forum with this question.

 

So wht reject authors of the past whose experience and wisdom has already been written down in the vedas and puranas'? Because they are from the past? God is timeless so that should be no block.

 

What I think I hear underlying your question is a desire to get to real living truth. I see that as a sign of a true seeker.

 

The scripture and writings of realized souls can be taken as dead letter or the living word. That is up to us in how we approach them.

 

Hare Krsna

[Guest guest]

when I was asking myself the exact questions you are and started meditating,I came to the END of my thought process or internal dialogue.This was a scarey place for a psuedo christian.Iwas reading abook by Ram Dass he said something like "If you ever fear your meditation picture Gods love surrounding you" So I sat and said to myself "Gods love surrounds me" A bolt of energy hit my head electrified every cell in my body all the way to my toescame back to my head and sort of descrambled there was informatin in it "GODS LOVE IS EVERYWHERE"every cell in my body knows this. So for me God is love and she is everywhere. You need to find the answer to your own question DO NOT SEARCH OUTSIDE YOURSELF

[theist]

You came to that experience by following the advice from this Ram das which you had read.

[Guest guest]

I came to this by reading alot of "advice " in alot of books and literally crying for the truth

[Guest guest]

And observing alot of barriers put up by institutionalized christian religion

[livingentity]

but who.

 

Our senses are faulty and covered by the veil of illusion causing us to be blind and ignorant. Thus, we can not rely on our faulty senses to answer these questions and must refer to the vedas whether directly and quoting verses or from memory (which is also faulty in this age of kali).

 

Personally, I prefer to see vedic quotes to back up the answers that are given to my questions. That way I know the answers are true and authorized and less likely to be based on speculations.

 

But to each their own...

[Govindaram]

Theres a story/pastime,

 

I will simplyfy it for text purposes,

 

a person who is the greatest devotee, goes to his spiritual master,

and expresses Himself as a fool,

so the spiritual master says, just chant harinama,

so the moral of the story is we are all in ignorance/fools

and the only way to revive our original nature is by chanting:

 

 

<font color="red"> HARE </font color> <font color="orange"> KRISHNA </font color> <font color="red"> HARE </font color> <font color="orange"> KRISHNA KRISHNA KRISHNA </font color> <font color="red"> HARE HARE

</font color> <font color="red"> HARE </font color> <font color="blue">RAMA </font color> <font color="red"> HARE </font color> <font color="blue"> RAMA RAMA RAMA </font color> <font color="red"> HARE HARE </font color>

 

 

 

[livingentity]

 

I do not want anybody who reply on the basis of his knowledge he has read in vedas or puranas.

 

 

Read any of Prabhupada's writing, lectures etc and you will find everything He said backed up by vedic verses. And we were also taught to do the same.

[Guest guest]

our senses? My sense of breath on the tip of my nose lead me to the answer GODS LOVE IS EVERYWHERE personaly I like to expirence this truth in every cell of my body , but to each his own chant hare krsna and be happy

[livingentity]

``No one can understand the transcendental nature of the name, form, quality and pastimes of Sri Krsna through his materially contaminated senses. Only when one becomes spiritually saturated by transcendental service to the Lord are the transcendental name, form, quality and pastimes of the Lord revealed to him.'' (Bhakti rasamrta-sindhu 1.2.234)

 

I am trying to explain to Sandy that we should not try to explain the nature of Lord Krsna without referring to the vedic scriptures. Our senses are contaminated by material nature and thus will contaminate any explainations.

 

We should not just try to "wing" it with our faulty perceptions.

 

 

[Guest guest]

 

God was experienced by people who wrote the vedas...

 

 

 

Nobody wrote the Vedas. I think what you mean to say is that God was experienced by the rishis who discovered different parts of the Vedas.

 

Those rishis are not "authors." In fact, they are calle "drashtars" meaning that they saw the Vedic truth.

 

[I_love_krishna_]

No one wrote the vedas, but the written texts that are available today are from the knowledge of the rishis thus making them the true authors by my view.

 

However, your view may be different. I am not a great scholar whom you question... I am just a neophyte devotee trying to taste the sweetness of Sri Radha Krishna... (I am the author of Re: what is God)

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Sorry ,I think I understand but my faulty perceptions ect.ect. So you have no ploblem with the "truth" I expireced but how I obtained it?

[livingentity]

if you are able to preceive the Lord through imperfect contaminated material senses then you are far more advanced than most and I should fall at your lotus feet. Do you have many disciples?

 

Actually, it appears more likely that you are just wanting to argue any point made even vedic verses. I am sure you have read the note in my id box and want to try to bait me with your nonsense. If you have not read my note before then now is the time to do so.

 

The typos and the misspellings are identifying you as someone that does this on a regular basis. Have fun... /images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

BTW...you can have the last word because as my id box note says I have better things to do. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Guest guest]

 

No one wrote the vedas, but the written texts that are available today are from the knowledge of the rishis thus making them the true authors by my view.

 

 

 

ILK, please try to understand what the views of the AchAryas are before stating your own opinion. Speculation only serves to confuse others outside the tradition. I know this is not your intention, but at the same time there is no need for you to be complacent with what you know, and what you think you know.

 

To "create" something implies that there was some time before which that thing did not exist. This is not acceptable to VedAntins and in fact it is a very basic axiom for VedAntic Hindus that Vedas are without beginning and end. Furthermore, to say that any human being might have authored any part of those Vedas immediately calls into question whether that individual (and hence, what he was alleged to have "wrote") is free of the four defects of conditioned life. Faith-acceptance that the author and his work are without blemish is not, I repeat, NOT a feature of any VedAntic school of thought.

 

Please see the following link:

 

http://www.geocities.com/kadirik/articles/apaurusheyatva_of_vedas.html

 

This discusses the concept of the Vedas and their unauthoredness in a very simple, step-by-step way based on the writings of Sri Madhva. It will help you to understand the basic issues of the Vedas and their (alleged) origins, and why certain things are not stated about them.

 

Of course, if you do not want to read it, that is also fine. But then please do not repeat again any remark about Vedas having any author in any sense. It is simply not true, and if you are, as you have admitted, a neophyte, then if you aren't going to study the relevant writings at least you should just accept what the AchAryas have instructed. Though personally I would encourage you to understand their thought process in this regard also.

 

thanks

[Guest guest]

ive read your posts Your right and everybody else is wrong and no i dont want you to fall at my feet show a little tolerance lets find whats the same in the divine not whats different

[Guest guest]

<< want the answer from them who have actually experienced GOD. >

 

such people are very few in the world. some remain hidden from the public. others preach and show way to others to god. many pretend they hav eexperienecd god. this is material world. bes luck. when you find one, let others hre know.

 

however, one can learn about god from gita.

learnig is not possible without faith.

when your mother showed you who your father is, you accepted i faithfully. when krishna speaks in gita one has to listenit faithfully. then live by it, then experiecne that what he said is true, and realize that krishna is god.

 

jai sri krishna! -madhav

 

 

[I_love_krishna_]

Yes , I agree with you. However, the link you have provided is not opening prabhu.

 

Oh well thanks for the info though /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Guest guest]

I told my story to someone I thought needed to hear it that makes 3 times I have exprienced a sliver of the divine Sandy if your out there I hope my simple post helps if not my bad

[sandy]

This one is a realy good experience. You have experienced love in its purest form. Great.

 

I would welcome such experiences from any one. No bookish knowledge without experience. I agree to my friends those who are saying that holy books have been written by rishis. May be they wrote it or not i do not know and if at all they wrote it was their experience of GOD. In fact God is personal. I am waiting for my GOD.

 

Pray for me that I experience him first hand fast.

Sandy

 

[livingentity]

one question, are you saying you want to become one with God?

[I_love_krishna_]

one question, are you saying you want to become one with God?

__________

 

No, sandy wants to realize God and end the suffering of life/death.

 

However, the focus is on realizing that there is God, but God is the self with in (in other words, Sandy's self= Everything) ...

 

That is just another illusion until you realize that if you want to realize that self itself is God... then you will have to lose all individuality and merge into the supreme self thus dying... or ending your soul's existence.