Post # 402 for reference:
To all sages and friends of gutter and everyone inbetween .....
I believe this is your way of telling your friend to get out of the gutter fixation and grow up.
all primitive societies tried to make sense of the apparent capriciousness of nature. They assumed sentient cause and further assumed they can be appeased if only a sort of offering is made to them. This is what you see in poorva mimamsa, full of rituals to appease forces of nature, how to conduct them and what benefits will accrue
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Just one difference. Indian society, unlike the animists of elsewhere, believed that a priori knowledge they have been bequethed came from time immemorial. Even applying rational thinking to this it is possible that knowledge survived in some form after a catostrophic event in the universe and was made available to the surviving lives. So it is reasonable to conclude that it is not simple fear of nature and the need to appease it which led to the ritualistic part of that knowledge.
As societies advanced and started to understand nature a little better, these rituals did not make much sense. The disconnect was all too obvious to ignore. Wise people started speculating further. In India there was an explosion of divergent thoughts, from pure materialists to ultra theist groups. Uttara mimamsa and its derivative Vedanta is one of those competing speculations. Long story short, Vedanta become dominant with the ascendency of Brahmins, or vice versa. Then, even within the Vedanta tradition there was no unanimity of thought, different schools of interpretation emerged.
So we cannot but put the blame on that wonderful all purpose punching bag "brahmin"!!Leaving that as a mere fixation and so the inadequacy of the instrument used to gain knowledge, let us move on. This is not a put down. Just a statement of what is observed. Vedanta is part of Vedas. It is not as if there was this old Testament and then the king called for the Nicean creed in Nice or a panchayat or sadas of religious priests in Constantinoples to adopt a new testament with suitable corrections to what was available. Neither is there any proof (other than those proffered by interested and confused western "scholars") that chronologically the vedanta contained in the Vedasiras came later to the karmakAnta of vedas. So to divide vedas into parts to relate them to chronology or to the civilizational growth does not have logical support.
The divergent schools within vedanta are based on strict adherence to Vedas. All of them asserted that what cannot be perceived or logically derived, must be understood only from the Vedas. For this, one has to have absolute faith in the inerrancy of the Vedas. It is for this reason Vedas came to be taken as aupuresheya and therefore inerrant. The different schools of Vedanta claim their interpretation is the true purport of the Vedas. Each of them is interesting in many ways, but it is not rocket science or string theory, beyond the scope of ordinary people to understand. All you need is interest in the topic and a rational, questioning mind. No other qualification is necessary, unless you are peddling something that will wilt away under strict scrutiny.
People believe in God. They believe that the vedas that came from perhaps a previous time and space is apaurusheya. They believe it contains the quintessence of all the knowledge that God wanted to pass on to them. That vedanta schools are based on adherence to vedas is just a statement of the obvious. What else can it be? Because what is said in vedas is eternal truth-not the truth relative to time-they believe every thing contained therein is inerrant. If you want to discuss vedanta the first requisite is not to question the axioms. What is wrong with this position? It is certainly no rocket science. But it requires a certain level of maturity in thinking because the ideas that are presented are all abstract. Anyway, it is not for those who can not grasp the idea of a God entity to begin with. Indian religious history is replete with instances of ordinary innocent simple minds (without any intellectual load) in search of knowledge understanding the truth spoken about in vedas.
This is the root of present shadow boxing that is being played out, descending into the gutter level. The repeated condescending put downs and comments that atheists and agnostics are deluded and incapable of understanding the true purport of vedanta is the real imbecilic dropping straight from the gutter of a mind. We all have our view, we present them. If one disagrees he/she has the right to dissect them, tear them apart, and then leave it for others to make their own judgment. But, if one constantly puts down the other person with pronouncements that they lack qualifications and by corollary anything they say is ipso facto invalid, then he or she will rightly be seen as an imbecile.
Gutter was introduced into this discussion by a learned sage here. Please ask him what was the need and why he has this fixation-you can even suggest that he gets himself cured of this.. When atheists and and agnostics are told that vedanta which is of God and about God requires acceptance of a few basic assumptions, and when they are not ready for that "assumed" position (without compromising their atheistic convictions) to facilitate a discussion where is the scope for exchange of ideas? When accusation is countered it becomes a put down and when calling people imbecile or from gutter is paid back in the same coin it becomes again a condescending put down.
If you are analysing the film review of a Rajnikant flick, you can tear it down, dissect it, bring the innards out to dry it on a line etc., but not when you discuss vedanta without taking the axioms.
So as there is no meeting point please go your way with your deeply and passionately held views and allow us to go our way. Thanks.
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