Concept of Incarnation

Question:
Whos is the 10th Avatara of Vishnu. Some told me that it is Buddha, some told it is Balarama. Please clarify.

My Reply:
Ten Avatars According to general Hindus and Madhva Vishnavas:

1. Matsya
2. Kurma
3. Varaha
4. Narasimha
5. Vamana
6. Parasurama
7. Rama
8. Krishna
9. Buddha
10. Kalki

Ten incarnations of Vishnu according to Vishnavas (except Madhvas):

1. Matsya
2. Kurma
3. Varaha
4. Narasimha
5. Vamana
6. Parasurama
7. Rama
8. Balarama
9. Krishna
10. Kalki

The concept of Avatara is that the infinite, limitless by his own will bounds himself and takes the form of a on earth. He too thus cannot remain untouched about the general human limitations like hunger, sleep etc. But his struggle against all these human limitations is to be an example and inspiration for others too. The Narayana who is the limitless, out of love for jivas enters the world of limitations to uphold the Dharma.

Well this is the puranic concept of an Avatara. Lets leave the question of how true it is aside for some time, and look at this from a purely evaluative manner. In my opinion the very concept of God coming as a human and showing by example is one of the highest ideas humans have ever conceived.

I in my present position not being able to do an Herculean task and god just waving his hand and it being done, is fine, but not a great ideal in my view. "He is powerful, so he did it, I am powerless, so I cant do it" is the typical idea one forms. But the belief that God himself has come down as a human to our level to show us by example in his own life. A god, attaining Moksha is no great a deal. But the same god, being born like one of us, having been subjected to the same type of problems and limitations, but raising above them is surely a great idea, even if it is just a belief.

The difference between the most Hindus and ISCKON is on the point what is the complete limless infinite, and what is the state in which that infinte confined itself into finite.

So to answer your question: No, Krishna IS an Avatara of Vishnu according to MAJORITY Hindus.

Question:
correct me if i am wrong, but isn't avatar a very vaishnavite concept?

i mean, the so called avatars of shiva do not find mention in any notable smruti literature, and in my experience have only been bestowed upon local gods to draw the pagan followers of those gods into the fold of hinduism.

i personally think that the whole avatar business is fundamentally a vaishnavite idea, which collates personalities from myth/actuality that have had some common purpose to their lives over the ages and give them descendanthood from the same Vaishnavite Godhood.

My Reply:
In the case of Shiva, usually the word Avatara is not used, instead the word "amsha" is used. Hanuman, Dhakshinamurthy, Dattareya, Sankaracharya etc are said to be Shiva's amsha (ie., projected from his power).

According to the concept of Avatara, an avatara comes to uphold the Dharma. In the three trinites, usually Vishnu is attributed the work of preservation of the universe(Brahma creator; Shiva destroyer), so quite natural that only Vishnu is referred. About the origins of this concept, a friend once suggested that it might have its early origins in the Buddhist times(Buddhists too have this concept of 24 Buddhas etc etc). I feel his theory is correct.

Also another intresting thing to note is that Avatara always comes accompanied with Shakti (also maya; represented in the form of wife), to preserve the creation (which 'exists' due to maya).

But Shiva always comes Single, and is a brahmachari. Shiva's amsha's aer not very much for preserving the creation, but they come either to play a supporting role to Vishnu (like Hanuman) or as monastic spiritual teachers (Shiva being the destroyer of ignorance).

"End of Times" in Hinduism

Question:
hi every one,

can any one shed some light on end of times according to hindu scriptures.

My Reply:
There is no concept of "end of times" in Hinduism. Concept of time according to us is circular in nature.

Time is eternal, and the process of Sristhi (something like creation) and pralaya (like dissolution) are continously happening, and the time goes on and on in circles.

For smaller particles, the cycle time for creation (creation is not the exact traslation of sristhi; projection may be a better word; but for sake of understanding, lets go with creation) of a tree from seed and then the dissolution of the tree, then creation of another tree.. goes on an on, but in smaller time cycles.

The creation and dissolution of larger areas and Earth goes on and on, but in greater time periods. This is symbolically represented by giving different time scales for different beings.

One year of humans is said to be one day for Devatas. One year for devatas, one day for Brahma(? forgot ), so on.

The time goes on like that. A smaller circle, enclosed in a bigger circle, this again enclosed in a much bigger circle… A Surya is born now, then dies, again in the next cycle, he is born and dies. This process goes on and on eternally.

Question:
so according to hindusim the earth will continue to exist for ever and ever.

and man will dwell it for ever?

My Reply:
This earth may not exist, but the 'earth' as a concept will exist for ever, just as a plant will aways exist.

a seed will become a plant, and a plant will become a tree. that plant is no longer existing. But 'plant'(as a generic concept) will always exist, next time with a different seed and tree.

In the same manner.. what is earth, Bigbang happening and the critical mass forming earth in a particular form.

This earth in time may dissolve. But what is once possible, is always possible again. If certian enviroment can create a earth, then it is also implied that the same thing can happen in future, provided there is no end to time.

so, this earth may not be eternal, but earth as a generic concept is eternal in Hinduism, so is everything else.

Question:
ok one more question.

what is the concept of receving good or bad depending upon ur actions in this world.

like in islam u will recieve punishment or reward for every single deed or misdeed u did in the next life.

what is the concept of hinduism regarding this?

My Reply:
As Dibya has already explained, good/bad deeds in Hinduism lead to acquiring good/bad "karma", the consequenses of which the doer has to enjoy/pay later.

How are good/bad karmas acquired: It is common sense that each action, thought produces a result. This action-reaction pair can be termed as karma. Thus not just actions, but even thoughts lead to acquring karma.

They can be comepared to the impression that is produced by every action or thought.

How is good/bad decided: To give a comparison, you have mentioned that in Islam, ones later life is decided by each and every deed/misdeed one commits(contrary to the catholic belief that ppl are by default sinners and accpeting by accpeting christ as their saviour, all their sins will be ignored). .

It is silimlar in Hinduism that each and every deed/misdeed counts. But the difference in Hinduism is that the standard for judging also differ from person to person.

In Islam there are some things which are defined as good/bad by a God. The degree of severity may differ from person to person, but still essentially what is good and what is bad are by and large fixed.

But in Hinduism, what is good/bad are also not rigidly fixed. The only criterion adopted in judging somthing as good/bad is the level of unselfishness. In a rough manner, what is unselfish is good, what is selfish and hurts others' is bad.

Thus in Hinduism it is possible for a man to be even an Atheist and reject God, and still be better placed than bad-religious guy. What matters is not the beliefs, but the inner attitude. Beliefs are there and oked too, but they are only seen as helpers in archieving an aim, rather than aim itself. While in Islam belief in God and his law is the end in itself, in Hinduism it is only means to the end(unselfishness).

How does one recieve the effects of his Karmas: There is no hard and fast rule about this. It may be either exactly the same, or may be merely symbolic. For example, if you remove the eyes of somebody, you too may either lose your eyes(which is literal) or may suffer for symbolically. The bottom line is you have to answer for both the good/bad karmas. They do not cancel out.

It is not necessary that one should get the results of the karma only in the next birth. Some may bring results in this life itself. That which have not yet brought their results are carried to the next birth, where the bring their results. Also the birth of the person where he born, to which parents etc is decided by this residual karma from the previous birth.

About hell & heaven: There are two views in Hinduism regarding this. One is that hell/heaven are symbolic. Your suffer a lot, with lot of mental pressure, that you feel you are in hell.

The other idea is that, it is a place, where one goes after his death.

But the important difference is that whether it is symbolic or a place, hell/heaven are not eternal. One goes there and comes back.

The idea behind this is that finite actions cannot lead to infinite results. A person doing 50 good deeds and 40 bad deeds and then his good being more than bad, going to heaven eternally, is something Hinduism does not accept. Its more like chance. The person has to suffer for his 40 bad deeds and also enjoy the effects of his 50 good deeds.

In Hinduism thus a person goes hell AND heaven(and returns), not hell OR heaven.

Hindutva - its basic ideology

Some of my thoughts on Hindutva, about it ideology and basis:

If one observes the Indian life closely, one quality which becomes immediately apparent is that religion is the one and sole interest of the people of India. For good or bad, religion pervades almost every sphere of life in India. People eat religiously, talk religiously, walk religiously and even rob religiously. Even if a robber in India has to find some followers, he has to explain the art of robbery as one of the 64 spiritual arts. We will not go into details whether such interpretations and manipulations are correct or not, nor shall we go into pros and cons of it. The point to be understood is that vitality of the Indian life lies in religion, you touch them there and they respond. Whenever Indians came together and fought, it was under the banner of religion.

It is this issue of deep intermingling of religion and life that the thinkers trying to revive the weakened India were faced with. The reactionaries and communists reacted by rejecting the whole of its religion and culture. They thus tried to transplant the whole tree of national life whose roots are deep inside religion to another place. The other group like Vivekananda, Aurobindo saw the potential of religion. They realized that one can work only under the law of least resistance, and that religious line is the line of least resistance in India.

One saw religion covering bad aspects of life in India and thus rejected the whole of it. The other group saw the potential of religion in it and its ability to guide the life of people. They have also observed that though religion forms the basis of Indian life, it also gives lot of freedom for change in religious ideas. This was because freedom is the first condition to growth and religious ideas in India have always flourished under the freedom they received in that subject.

Religion thus became the means of social development in India. For example saying “it is the same atman which is pervading all the beings, then how is one lower and one higher” to tackle the caste problem, or saying “the god pervades every corner of this universe, and manifests the most in humans; thus to serve a poor man is equivalent to serving Shiva himself” for generating sense of social responsibility... and there was no need for them even to invent new things. They were already there. One had to just give those ideas new life.

The same with the case of nationalism. If there is anything which is common and has the ability to unify and bind all the various regions of India, it is Hinduism alone. Here I am not referring to Hinduism as a set of beliefs (which again is very diverse), but about the Hindu attitude and culture. Religion thus once more became the means for generating nationalistic attitude. Whether it is the “For the next fifty years this alone shall be our keynote — this, our great Mother India. Let all other vain gods disappear for the time from our minds” of Swami Vivekananda, or the Vandemataram of Bakim Chandra where he identifies India with Goddess Bhavani or the freedom struggle under the leadership of Gandhi who had to explain Satyagraha as a spiritual practice or the first war of Independence which again was started because of religious reasons... all of them demonstrated the potential of religion in uniting and activating Indians towards action.

It is this idea of Hindu-ness as the foundation of nationalism which forms the basis of Hindutva.

I can sum up the whole Hindutva ideology as:

Good of Hindus = Good of India
Good of India = Good of Hindus

[Note the purpose of mentioning of it in the reverse order also; for life is not maths]


The word Hinduva originates from Hindu-Tattva or Hindu-nature or Hindu-ness. Hence Hindutva just symbolizes the "Hindu-ness".

When we say Hindu-ness, it is also very important to first define what one means by that word.

It is very difficult to give a precise definition of Hinduism and there is no one commonly accepted definition of the word Hindu. The Indian law also fails to do the same. Supreme court in a judgment ruled that the word Hindu does not mean a fixed belief system but refers to a way of life, a culture and territorial region. Vivekananda explained the word Hindu as referring to people living on this side of Sindhu. Sangh and Savarkar refined it a little and defined the word Hindu as “those who identify Bharat as their motherland” (I am using the word Bharat instead of India as India refers to a political and geographical entity; while Bharat refers to a conscious cultural and geographical concept; both are almost same but with little differences)

The word Hindu thus does not exclude people of other religions from it as long as they consider Bharat to be their motherland and identify its happiness/sorrow as their happiness/sorrow. As Advani once said “those residing in the country are Hindus even if many of them believe in different religions”

What then is the issue of disagreement of these groups with the minorities and why then does some feel, like the article says “one which has pretensions to being all-inclusive, but which demonises Muslims”? The complaint of these groups against minorities is their “religion first” attitude, instead of “nation first” attitude. While the history of Islam in India had always raised doubts about Islamic tolerance, the partition of India with the support of many Muslims added conviction that Muslims care little about the idea of India. Thus the problem is not with Muslims or Islam, but with the “religion first” and worse “religion even at the cost of partition of nation” that is the problem.

The question which was thus posed at the Hindus was “how far can we tolerate intolerance?” One has to note the fact that clear distinction between Muslims and Islam is always maintained. Even the poster boys of media for Hindu fundamentalism do not dare to call other religions as ‘false’. One may take it as my challenge.. quote any note worthy Hindu leader or even a member of Bajarang Dal etc calling other religions as ‘false’. Acceptance of other ways of worship as true is not just a quality but a necessity for Hinduism keeping in view its diverse ideas and beliefs.

It is at this question of “how far can one tolerate intolerance” that grapples the Hindu mind. The Hindu society has been divided into two extremes regarding this:

1) One sections like the bajarag dal feels that Hindus should leave their tolerance. "Being tolerant is making the Hindu society weak. Conversions are being carried out with sword and money, but we are simply sitting and seeing tamasha. Time is not away when Hindus will be wiped out just the way all the native american and african civilizations has been wiped out" is their line of thinking.

2) The other end is the 'pseudo-secularists'. They do not eve accept that there is a problem. They try to justify everything, change the history if necessary. They selectively see only the acts of Hindus. For them it is communal to talk about Hinduism, but secular to give reservations based on religion. BJP is communal for them, but Muslim League of Kerala or Muslim Majlis party in Hyderabad are secular (both are the ‘secular’ allies of Congress). They turn a blind eye to all the Hindu grievances. They are not even to ready to accept that Hindus are being selectively killed by Muslims in Kashmir, Bangladesh; that Church is directly supporting terrorists in Northeast, and a Hindu cannot even celebrate his festivals there. Minority appeasement became the new form of secularism.

But still for ordinary Hindus, the question still remains the same: “Should I become intolerant to preserve my religion with its tolerance; or should I be tolerant, and allow tolerance itself to be destroyed” It is because of their ability to tackle this question effectively that makes Vivekananda and other similar thinkers close to Hindu heart.

They made no effort to paint the incidents of intolerance in nice colours nor about the ‘evil idolaters’ worshipping ‘devils’, nor did they leave thier . It is from these ideas that the concept of “Intellectual Khatriya” comes (the word was coined by David Frawley). It is here that the Hindutva ideas of tolerance differ very much from that of Gadhian ideas of tolerance. Tolerance should not be misunderstood as timidity and inaction. Tolerance is of a Master, not of a slave. What power does a timid have other than simply sit and see, and which he calls to himself as tolerance. To compromise with falsehood is not tolerance or non-violence. It is self-destruction. To turn away in fear or hesitation, not to stand up for what one believes is true, is not modesty but self-betrayal. The challenge before the Hindu society then will be to differentiate evil from the evil doer.

Being a supporter of Hindutva does not mean that all the Hindus start having swords and kill everybody, and be intolerant. All it requires is to be aware of various threat. So, the next time some guy tries a cheap appeasement tricks, you will simply laugh at his lies and hence his purpose is defeated. At the same time we have no grudges against him, and tolerant towards him.

This approach is based on the observation that though Hindus have been subject to many a attacks, the primary reason for their success was not their overwhelming power or that the Hindus are weak fighters.... but coz they could successfully divert the Hindus against the Hindu society. All this was made possible because of:

1. inaction of the Hindus to resist an aggression

2. inability to understand the psychology of the aggressor properly (they assumed enemies were also bound by the same laws- like Prithvi Raj setting free Ghouri- while they were actually not)

3. inability of the Hindu society to give a combined resistance


Hence, it is in these spheres that most of the work these days is proceeding, for what the Hindus lack is not strength, but the will to act.

And most importantly it not just talk, but follow in our life the religious ideals, coz religion does not lie in theories, but in practice. I feel this way we can remain tolerant, and yet preserve our tolerance.

My Indian origins: Y-chromosome typing (on AIT)

Reproducing an intresting post by Ratan on Orkut:

a) So I had my DNA typed for $100 at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/genographic , inspired by some of the HGxyz discussions here. It turned up to be M17 aka R1a aka HG3. National Geographic claims that this originated in Southern Russia or Ukraine ("European origin," says the video on the site). Caution: I thought they would also type my mtDNA (Maternal Lineage) but they didn't.

b) Then I began to educate myself on this some more. Apparently, Iran has a very low incidence of R1a. India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia are the hot-zones for it. Apparently, if you are English and have R1a, it indicates a Viking ancestry - http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/GENEALOGY-DNA/2005-03/1109692196

c) The National Geographic website informed me that speakers of Indo-Aryan languages have a strong incidence of this type ("haplogroup") and speakers of Dravidian do not. And, basically, that my forefather somewhere, sometime was likely a Kurgan (proto-Indo-European) who wintered in what they're calling the Ukranian refuge (a not-completely-frozen area during the last Ice Age). The ftdna site finds someone alive and on the system today that has an exact 12str Y-chromosome match with me - some dude in Germany (ie. not only is he R1a, his variant of R1a is pretty close to mine - implying a more near-term common ancestor, maybe 5000 years or so).

d) Then I read this - http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=12536373 - apparently, hardcore Dravidian and Tribal populations in India show almost exactly the *same* incidence of this "European" R1a as do Northwestern Indians like myself. If I have Eurasian steppes roots, so do they. And I read stuff that says that the R1a variation within India is greater than that in Europe. Which *directly* implies an Indian or Indian-proximity origin for R1a (the so-called "founder effect"). I did find this one paper disputing this and claiming greater diversity in Croatia, but that's it (also, there is a theory, from a European, that the Croatian name for Croatia = Hrvati is a derivative of the Iranian Harahvati, which is basically Persianized Sarasvati - http://www.raceandhistory.com/Science/croatia.htm ).

e) Suddenly, what Anurag says doesn't seem so far fetched after all. A third of Norwegians are R1a - a haplogroup that seems to have originated in India in the last 10-15,000 years. Koya and Chenchu tribals in South India share the same paternity. What does this indicate? Needless to say, AIT looks pretty shaky to me at this point, at least genetically speaking.

f) I do not approach this with any agenda either way. Would love to hear other people's thoughts. Also, if you've had your ancestry typed, I'd like to hear about it as well.

Peace, brotherhood and friendship to all, regardless of your chromosomes :-).

Communism

As in everything, there are two parts in commies… one who sincerely believe in the ideology and are committed and the others who are simple opportunists, who do not want to do any work, but cover their laziness in words like worker rights etc. Lets the neglect for the time being this type of people, and concentrate on the committed communists (ie., who are sincere and committed towards the ideology)

1. Some of the committed communists are ones’ who see the various problems in the society are genuinely concerned about them. They try to get the answer to these questions. Being revolutionary in nature, their understanding is only superficial and do not try to go to the roots of the problem.

Understandably this is also the first natural human reaction… seeing a suffering and to confuse the symptom with the disease itself. They read the various ‘success’ stories of other communist nations (usually Russia in the past) and try to emulate them in them here. But, when one does not have full understanding of the problem, more often this emulation turns into blind imitation, without questioning the working or relevance of those thoughts in the Indian context.

2. The other part is the total lack of patience. They are committed are restless, but they do not develop the necessary patience to first understand the problem. After all the human being are one of the most complex of all, more so in the Indian context with LOTS of regions, religions, and history.

When there is a problem in the society, people with long-sightedness try to explain it in terms of human nature and tendencies and also try to address the evil in the person, not the person himself. But short-sighted people do not want to go into the details of the it. They simply try to find a person or group and abuse all the evils on him. Usually this will the prevailing custom or religion or group of the day.

It is in this mixture of points 1&2 which turns a committed communist into a dogmatic one, and abusing anything and everything Indian becomes his fashion statement an in the process become NIRs (Non-Indian Residents). He abuses its culture, its religions, its history, its institutions, its heroes… Criticism thus for them ceases to be means to the end and become the end in itself.. They start enjoying denigrating anything Indian and instead of hating the evil they start hating the wrongdoer (who in their case happens to be everyone who does not agree with them).

Here it is worth recalling what Swami Vivekananda says addressing the reactionary-reformists in his “My plan of campaign delivered” lecture in Madras: The history of the world teaches us that wherever there have been fanatical reforms, the only result has been that they have defeated their own ends… Such is the testimony of history against every fanatical movement, even for doing good. I have seen that. My own experience has taught me that. Therefore I cannot join any one of these condemning societies. Why condemn? There are evils in every society; everybody knows it. Every child of today knows it; he can stand upon a platform and give us a harangue on the awful evils in Hindu Society. Every uneducated foreigner who comes here globe-trotting takes a vanishing railway view of India and lectures most learnedly on the awful evils in India. We admit that there are evils. Everybody can show what evil is, but he is the friend of mankind who finds a way out of the difficulty… What good has been done except the creation of a most vituperative, a most condemnatory literature? … But that is no reformation. You must go down to the basis of the thing, to the very root of the matter. That is what I call radical reform. Put the fire there and let it burn upwards and make an Indian nation. And the solution of the problem is not so easy, as it is a big and a vast one.

…Boys, moustached babies, who never went out of Madras, standing up and wanting to dictate laws to three hundred millions of people with thousands of traditions at their back! Are you not ashamed? Stand back from such blasphemy and learn first your lessons! Irreverent boys, simply because you can scrawl a few lines upon paper and get some fool to publish them for you, you think you are the educators of the world, you think you are the public opinion of India! Is it so? This I have to tell to the social reformers of Madras that I have the greatest respect and love for them. I love them for their great hearts and their love for their country, for the poor, for the oppressed. But what I would tell them with a brother's love is that their method is not right; It has been tried a hundred years and failed. Let us try some new method.

Did India ever stand in want of reformers? Do you read the history of India? Who was Ramanuja? Who was Shankara? Who was Nânak? Who was Chaitanya? Who was Kabir? Who was Dâdu? Who were all these great preachers, one following the other, a galaxy of stars of the first magnitude? Did not Ramanuja feel for the lower classes? Did he not try all his life to admit even the Pariah to his community? Did he not try to admit even Mohammedans to his own fold? Did not Nanak confer with Hindus and Mohammedans, and try to bring about a new state of things? They all tried, and their work is still going on. The difference is this. They had not the fanfaronade of the reformers of today; they had no curses on their lips as modern reformers have; their lips pronounced only blessings. They never condemned. They said to the people that the race must always grow. They looked back and they said, "O Hindus, what you have done is good, but, my brothers, let us do better." They did not say, "You have been wicked, now let us be good." They said, "You have been good, but let us now be better." That makes a whole world of difference.

We must grow according to our nature. Vain is it to attempt the lines of action that foreign societies have engrafted upon us; it is impossible… I do not condemn the institutions of other races; they are good for them, but not for us. What is meat for them may be poison for us. This is the first lesson to learn. With other sciences, other institutions, and other traditions behind them, they have got their present system. We, with our traditions, with thousands of years of Karma behind us, naturally can only follow our own bent, run in our own grooves; and that we shall have to do.


But our Indian communists still find it easier to swallow chewed up crap of others, than do original thinking. In this context I also like the highlight the difference between Indian communists and the other world communists. China for example, is much different and what they proudly call “Communism the Chinese way”. Whereas the Indian communists are just hypocritical in most cases, and lack original thinking. Having said, I do welcome some efforts of people like Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. Not coz I agree with everything he says, but coz he showing willingness to hear and try new ideas and accept new realties.

One more problem is something inherent in communism. For them the world is comprises of two sections – Proletariat and bourgeois, and continuously in conflict (dialectics). True that differences lead to conflict in some cases, but they do not always, and more importantly conflict can be avoided. The rise of middle class and the failure of communism in India is the point in favour of this argument. This conflict theory when taken to the extreme tends into naxalism, while the other is type is intellectual polarization (the Marxist historians as they are called)

It is important that atleast we maintain a difference between ‘problem’ and the ‘person with problem’ instead of blindly hating all the communists. Ofcourse all this is about people who are sincere are want to do something. Not about some morons like the ones’ you get plenty on orkut who sit in US and enjoy ridiculing India and US.

Why Salvation

Reproducing from a discussion on orkut.

Question:
Now these must be the dumbest questions of all....but it just came to my mind while watching Matrix Revolutions (which as all of you know reflects the basic understanding of Hinduism too) and I'd a hard time finding the "flaw" in the reasoning....so please bear with me and if possible help me understand!

Exactly what is salvation? How does taking birth again and again matter to the soul?

Our souls are supposed to be beyond any feeling of pleasure and pain......its our mortal bodies that experience these feelings.......so what are rebirths, heaven and hell to a soul? In a way, what does "returning to source" really means as in Hinduism?

So, clearly put, the question can be divided in 2:

1) If soul is so beyond any feelings, then being on earth, being in heaven, being in hell are all same to it! So, none is better then the other.....why strive for getting out of the birth cycles?

2) What is salvation according to Hinduism? Death of soul as in merging with the supreme being (source)? Why is it better then life?

My Reply:
<<< Our souls are supposed to be beyond any feeling of pleasure and pain......its our mortal bodies that experience these feelings.......so what are rebirths, heaven and hell to a soul? In a way, what does "returning to source" really means as in Hinduism?>>>>

You are mixing up two states here.

Lets take a example, of waking and dream state. Suppose if a person sleeps and has a dream. All the characters in his dream are not really there, but he feels in that dream that he has killed somebody or that some of his near and dear are lost etc etc. and then in the dream, he becomes happy/unhappy…. ie., he becomes affected by them.

But all the time it was a dream, the person did not really get effected in the manner he thought by the dream. He was has not killed, nor has anyone died except in his dream.

If one asks does the happenings and experiences of the dream are real or not… they are depending on our state. As long as the person is in the state of dream, all of it is real to him, but no sooner is he awake, he realizes that it was all a just a dream and not real.

In the same manner, the soul is eternally free and beyond all pleasure and pain. Thus the very concept of freedom of soul is wrong. It is already free.

What is the mukti we talk about then… it is realization of this fact. All these rebirths, spiritual disciplines, etc are there as long as we are not aware of this truth, just as all the suffering of the dream is there as long as the dream is there. Soul never gets liberated… it is already free… it only realizes its nature, just like a person waking up from dream realizes his pain, pleasure, etc to be unreal.

Coming to your other question of why salvation….Finding the fundamental human motive to all actions has been always been the complex question before thinkers. Marx tries to explain everything in terms of money, while Darwin tries to explain it as “survival instinct” (Freud unable to explain suicide also introduces another thing called “suicide instinct”). Like that different possibilities are given as per what is the basic human motive…. What drives men to do something and not to do something.

I feel the most fundamental of all is “freedom”. In what ever ppl do, you can see that they this is the one factor are work always. Whether it is survival instinct (freedom from pain) or suicide instinct (freedom from unavoidable pain) or craving for money (freedom from limitations and dependability) or concept of hell and heaven (freedom from death) or unselfishness (freedom from limited ‘ego’)…. Whatever be the action, you can see that this is one motive which is present in one way or other.

Different actions are present due to different understanding of this freedom. For example freedom to enjoy a careless life now, to repent later (which is based on immediate freedom) or be disciplined (freedom to control) now and get the results of this hard work in future (long term freedom)

All these actions are having the same motive, but different understanding. One short term and one long term in the above example.

Concept of Mukti is based on this idea only. You are not satisfied with limited freedom… there is no end to the want of freedom. Soul being infinite in nature cannot bear limitation, it thus wants complete or infinite freedom. What way is there to attain complete, than to become one with the infinite. As long as there ‘I’ there will also be ‘not I’ which will have its effect on the ‘I’. So the only way to remove the ‘not I’ is to remove ‘I’.

Thus we have all these ideas of Mukti as liberation, Mukti as freedom, Mukti as realization, Mukti as being one with God, Mukti as removal of ‘I’. All these are just different forms of expressing the same idea.

< What is salvation according to Hinduism?>

I think previous para of my post answers that.

<Death of soul as in merging with the supreme being (source)?>

there is no death to soul. It is eternal. The death is only of ‘I’.

< Why is it better then life?>

because unlimited is always better than limited.


Question:
I still have 2 questions (and actually these have been lingering even before this discussion started).

1. Assuming that the soul is infinite and free, and it is a matter of realizing that, what is the reason for it to become finite and bound? I mean assuming that there was only 'Om' or Brahman or Parmatman at the beginning, what is the reason that he formed the Universe and all the beings in it? Why was there disturbance in an otherwise all-stready Infinite mass?
In other words, what is the cause of The Cause?

2. If you say that soul has attributes and it is only a matter of our ignorance (or our being in 'dreaming state'), how do our actions in past births affect us? I mean, assuming that mind and body change with each birth, how is the past 'karma' carried forward? As far as i cna see, the only thing that might be common across births is the thing referred to as soul...


My Reply:
<<2. If you say that soul has attributes and it is only a matter of our ignorance (or our being in 'dreaming state'), how do our actions in past births affect us? I mean, assuming that mind and body change with each birth, how is the past 'karma' carried forward? As far as i cna see, the only thing that might be common across births is the thing referred to as soul...>>>

There is a nice Vedantic story about a lioness, who was big with young, going about in search of prey; and seeing a flock of sheep, she jumped upon them. She died in the effort; and a little baby lion was born, motherless. It was taken care of by the sheep and the sheep brought it up, and it grew up with them, ate grass, and said "Ba-a-a" when the sheep said "Ba-a-a". And although in time it became a big, full-grown lion. it thought it was a sheep.

One day another lion came by. in search of prey and was astonished to find that in the midst of this flock of sheep was a lion, fleeing like the sheep at the approach of danger. "What do you do here?" said the second lion in astonishment: for he heard the sheep-lion bleating with the rest. "Ba-a-a," said the other. "I am a little sheep, I am a little sheep, I am frightened." "Nonsense!" roared the first lion, "come with me; I will show you." And he took him to the side of a smooth stream and showed him that which was reflected therein. "You are a lion; look at me, look at the sheep, look at yourself." And the sheep-lion looked, and then he said, "Ba-a-a, I do not look like the sheep — it is true, I am a lion!" and with that he roared a roar that shook the hills to their depths.

Our situation is no different. All the time we are the infininte, pure, omnipotent atman. But we come to delude ourselves that we are limited and bound. So it is not correct to ask why the Atman got limited. It never got; we only felt it was. The lion never became the sheep; it only deluded itself to be so. As long it was under than delusion, it also suffered from fear of danger of other lions. It had no danger, but it still felt itself to be in a danger.

In the same manner, the man when in delusion will be effected by the results of it. It is only when the lion realized that it too is a lion, it got rid of the fear. Else it was also being subjected to the same fear, as any other sheep.

Also from my previous example, the dream of the man was not really affecting the man. But as long as the person is in dream, he WILL feel its effects. The lion was never effected, but as long as it is in the delusion, it WILL feel the effects of the fear. All these actions/good/bad etc cannot effect in any way the eternally free atman. But as long as we feel that we are not the Atman, but only limited being, we WILL continue to feel the effects of it. As long as you are in the limited, you feel the implications of the limited. You have to go through all the births and deaths etc. All the dreams are true, as long as you are in the dream. When you get up, you realize it was all a dream.


<<1. Assuming that the soul is infinite and free, and it is a matter of realizing that, what is the reason for it to become finite and bound?>>>

yea this is the most natural question…why the infinite became finite; or why it appears to have become finite. But just think, is the answer for this question really possible?

What is meant by knowledge in our common-sense idea? It is only something that has become limited by our mind, that we know, and when it is beyond our mind, it is not knowledge. We seek to know how the Absolute has become the relative. Supposing we knew the answer, would the Absolute remain the Absolute? It would have become relative. Now if the Absolute becomes limited by the mind, It is no more Absolute; It has become finite. Everything limited by the mind becomes finite. Therefore to know the Absolute is again a contradiction in terms. That is why this question has never been answered, because if it were answered, there would no more be an Absolute.

In asking what caused the Absolute, what an error we are making! To ask this question we have to suppose that the Absolute also is bound by something, that It is dependent on something; and in making this supposition, we drag the Absolute down to the level of the universe. For in the Absolute there is neither time, space, nor causation; It is all one. That which exists by itself alone cannot have any cause. That which is free cannot have any cause; else it would not be free, but bound. That which has relativity cannot be free. Thus we see the very question, why the Infinite became the finite, is an impossible one, for it is self-contradictory

Does this mean that there is then no answer to this question? No. It only means that an answer cannot be given in words and ideas (ie., in terms of mind). But answer IS possible for this question, only it is beyond mind.

How is the answer possible for this… to know an answer to something we have to either understand it, or become one with it. As understanding it impossible, become one with the infinite. As long as you are different from the infinite, you will not get the answer. Become one with, and you know all about it.

I think this conclusion is very natural. Suppose due to some reason, you who were free, got locked inside a room. Now the answer for why you got locked inside will be lie outside the room. Become free, and you will get the answer.

PS: Most of my post is from complete works of Swami Vivekananda. But I could not quote as I took from different places, changing the sentences selective according to this context.