If God Comes before you "What would you ask Him ?"

[sangom]

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Ravi Sir,

In my view, God has to be experienced. Ignore the athiest. This article comes to my mind on expereing God, which I would like to share here.

God cannot be understood by delving into heavy tones. It is an expereince that comes with time, and for us to have the joy of experiencing God, we must first have hearts that are ready to receive him.

Listening to religious discourses, reading religious literature and spending our time with the virtuous are all ways of preparing our mind and hearts to experience the bliss that comes from God realisation.

However, we wrongly assume that once we have acquired formal education through colleges and universities, we are ready to talk about God. For instance, a newspaper may carry materorological predictions. The forecast for the day may say that rains are expected. Now if we want to expereince the rains, and know what it feels like to get wet in the rain, we must actually wait for it to rain and then go out in the rain.

Can we expereince what it means like to get wet in the rain, by sqeezing the paper that carries the prediction about rainfall? In the same way, we can expereince God only through believing Him.

God is not impressed by a person's scholarship. It is bakthi, the belief!!

Most cannot think about anything without a mental image, like can one live without breathing. By the law of Assocation, the material image calls up the mental idea and vice versa. This is why an Hindu uses a external symbol, mind steadfastly fixed on the Being to whom he prays. After all, how much does omnipresence mean to most of the world?

　
Good day.


With regards.

Shri Balasubramani sir,

What you have written above is, in my view, very relevant to part of this thread title, viz., "If God comes before you" but then I will ask, how can you be sure that it is God and not anything else?

You say Bhakti (Listening to religious discourses, reading religious literature and spending our time with the virtuous are all ways of preparing our mind and hearts to experience the bliss that comes from God realisation.) and that in these ways God realization will come to you. It may be true that most people are "moved" by certain inputs like good music, good oratory, good books well-written, and so on. But such a state of mind in which a person feels "moved" may not be because of any bliss that comes from God realization. This can happen even after viewing a very 'moving' cinema the subject matter of which has nothing whatsoever to do with religion or virtuous persons. Only qualified psychologists may be able to pronounce the final judgment but I feel this is just an essential part of even animal nature in which one animal (dog) suckles an orphaned animal of another species (kitten).

I have witnessed many so-called Bhaagavathas who apparently go into bhakti ecstasy during bhajans and even start jumping up and down, and the other bhakta goshTi doing sAshTAnga namaskAr to the former, on the premise that God has manifested in the former. This and many similar actions of "frenzy" can be seen within the gamut of religion, but there is no evidence that it is all due to an outsider God entering into the body, mind or intellect of the concerned person. On the contrary I know that some of these people perform after strenuous practice, and even take the help of some narcotics like Kanja for doing all these acts.

It does not therefore suffice simply to equate some of the "moving" sensory inputs as methods of god-realization or of the bliss supposed to be arising therefrom. Also the question remains, who is it that enjoys this moving affair; is it something other than god?

 

[V.Balasubramani]

Shri Balasubramani sir,


It does not therefore suffice simply to equate some of the "moving" sensory inputs as methods of god-realization

Sri Sangom Ji,

As for God-Reliazation, I furnish hereunder the last sloka of Vivekachoodamani as pronounced by Sankara.

Sloka No.581. of Vivekachoodamani

"For those who are afflicted in this samsar by the burning pains caused by the scorching sun rays of the three-fold sorrows (Adhyarmika, adhidaivika, and adhibhautika), and those who, in delution, roam in a desert in search of water, for them here is the glorious message of Sankara pointing out the Ocean of Nectar, the non-dual Brahman, within easy reach, in order to lead them to liberation".

This wide and ample meter is general employed by Sankara when he wants to pack a library of suggestive meanings into the band of a single verse. To a student who has seriously gone through the text, the terms employed in the verse need no commentary, and we are afraid that an exhaustive commentary would spoil the enchantment of the voiceless poetry.

To those who are in vain searching in a desert, thirty and exhausted to them, Sankara points out, with his confident message, an ocean of Nactar - the Brahman which is Satchiananda.
The final result of such a spirit Self rediscovery is a total liberation of the moral individuality from all its physical, mental and intellectual entanglement. This is called Liberation, Self-Relealisation or God Realisation.


P.S: As for other items like Moving Cinema, narcotics ganja, etc are your stuff.

 

[sangom]

Sri Sangom Ji,

As for God-Reliazation, I furnish hereunder the last sloka of Vivekachoodamani as pronounced by Sankara.

Sloka No.581. of Vivekachoodamani

"For those who are afflicted in this samsar by the burning pains caused by the scorching sun rays of the three-fold sorrows (Adhyarmika, adhidaivika, and adhibhautika), and those who, in delution, roam in a desert in search of water, for them here is the glorious message of Sankara pointing out the Ocean of Nectar, the non-dual Brahman, within easy reach, in order to lead them to liberation".

This wide and ample meter is general employed by Sankara when he wants to pack a library of suggestive meanings into the band of a single verse. To a student who has seriously gone through the text, the terms employed in the verse need no commentary, and we are afraid that an exhaustive commentary would spoil the enchantment of the voiceless poetry.

To those who are in vain searching in a desert, thirty and exhausted to them, Sankara points out, with his confident message, an ocean of Nactar - the Brahman which is Satchiananda.
The final result of such a spirit Self rediscovery is a total liberation of the moral individuality from all its physical, mental and intellectual entanglement. This is called Liberation, Self-Relealisation or God Realisation.


P.S: As for other items like Moving Cinema, narcotics ganja, etc are your stuff.

Shri Balasubramani sir,

You have given (unnecessarily) the entire details from some commentary on the vivekacūḍāmaṇi.

Anyway, since you have brought vivekacūḍāmaṇi into these discussions, I think the following few points may be of much use to people who are interested not only in Listening to religious discourses, reading religious literature and spending our time with the virtuous (in the hope of finding god within) but also in such stuff as Moving Cinema, narcotics ganja, etc.

vivekacūḍāmaṇi

न योगेन न सांख्यॆन कर्मणा नो न विद्यया ।
ब्रह्मात्मैकत्वबोधेन मोक्षः सिद्ध्यति नान्यथा ॥ विवेकचूडामणि-५६

(na yogena na sāṃkhyena karmaṇā no na vidyayā |
brahmātmaikatvabodhena mokṣaḥ siddhyati nānyathā || vivekacūḍāmaṇi-56)

[Neither by Yoga, nor by Samkhya, nor by Karma, nor by erudition, but by the (constant) awareness of the identity of the Self with Brahman is liberation attained, and by no other means.]

श्रद्धाभक्ति ध्यानयोगन्मुमुक्षोर्मुक्तेर्हेतून्वक्ति साक्षात्छ्रुतेर्गीः ।
योवैतेष्वेव तिष्ठत्यमुष्यमोक्षॊऽविद्याकल्पिताद्देहबन्धात् ॥ विवेकचूडामणि-४६
(śraddhābhakti dhyānayoganmumukṣormukterhetūnvakti sākṣātchrutergīḥ |
yovaiteṣveva tiṣṭhatyamuṣyamokṣo:'vidyākalpitāddehabandhāt || vivekacūḍāmaṇi-46)

[Faith, devotion, meditation and Yoga — these are shown by the sruti as immediate causes leading to the liberation of a seeker. Whosoever dwells in them gets liberated from the bodily bondage arising from ignorance.]

If the same text, viz., vivekacūḍāmaṇi can have both the above verses, what is its reliability? Sankara, I understand, has not used the word bhakti anywhere in his bhashyas of the prasthānatraya; he emphasizes only jnaana.

The south Indian edition of vivekacūḍāmaṇi consists of 451 verses only as against 580 in the Gita Press and Advaita Ashrama editions. Hence there is lot of doubt about how authentic the vivekacūḍāmaṇi itself is!

(Thanks are due to the book "Adi Sankara's Vision of Reality" by Vidyabhushanam, Vidyavachaspati V. Panoli : Mathrubhumi Prining & Publishing Co. Ltd., Calicut-673001.

 

[V.Balasubramani]

Sri Sangom Ji,

You don't believe in temple worship.

But this Forum, Viz. Tamil Brahmins Forum has a Logo of a temple on its righr side in the opening page.

Since you dont believe temple worship, can you say it is unnecessary and ask Mr. Praveen to remove it.

You have a limit. You have no other way except to post your opinions against temple worship, in this very same Forum which has a Logo of Temple on its right side which is against your faith.

What is in my POV is necessary may be unnecessary for you.

BTW I don't want to unnecessarily derail this thread further.

 

[sangom]

Sri Sangom Ji,

You don't believe in temple worship.

But this Forum, Viz. Tamil Brahmins Forum has a Logo of a temple on its righr side in the opening page.

Since you dont believe temple worship, can you say it is unnecessary and ask Mr. Praveen to remove it.

You have a limit. You have no other way except to post your opinions against temple worship, in this very same Forum which has a Logo of Temple on its right side which is against your faith.

What is in my POV is necessary may be unnecessary for you.

BTW I don't want to unnecessarily derail this thread further.

Shri Balasubramani sir,

I feel you are trying to wriggle out, having no satisfactory answer to the unreliability of the text of vivekachoodaamani, with irrefutable evidence presented by me.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with my belief in temple worship or anything else. You brought in someone's commentary of the so-called last verse of vivekachoodaamani to score a debating point and I showed that even those scriptural texts are not dependable.

You see this is just one example of how religion can mislead and confuse the minds of people. And bhakti is one of the easiest and surest of weapons in hinduism to beguile people. It is not whether you feel god's presence inside you or you have realized god, but whether that god feels like coming into you and make himself recognizable to you, which may decide god-realization. I am sure you have read the poem "Abu Ben Adam".

 

[V.Balasubramani]

Shri Balasubramani sir,

You have given (unnecessarily) the entire details from some commentary on the vivekacūḍāmaṇi.

Anyway, since you have brought vivekacūḍāmaṇi into these discussions, I think the following few points may be of much use to people who are interested not only in Listening to religious discourses, reading religious literature and spending our time with the virtuous (in the hope of finding god within) but also in such stuff as Moving Cinema, narcotics ganja, etc.

vivekacūḍāmaṇi

न योगेन न सांख्यॆन कर्मणा नो न विद्यया ।
ब्रह्मात्मैकत्वबोधेन मोक्षः सिद्ध्यति नान्यथा ॥ विवेकचूडामणि-५६

(na yogena na sāṃkhyena karmaṇā no na vidyayā |
brahmātmaikatvabodhena mokṣaḥ siddhyati nānyathā || vivekacūḍāmaṇi-56)

[Neither by Yoga, nor by Samkhya, nor by Karma, nor by erudition, but by the (constant) awareness of the identity of the Self with Brahman is liberation attained, and by no other means.]

श्रद्धाभक्ति ध्यानयोगन्मुमुक्षोर्मुक्तेर्हेतून्वक्ति साक्षात्छ्रुतेर्गीः ।
योवैतेष्वेव तिष्ठत्यमुष्यमोक्षॊऽविद्याकल्पिताद्देहबन्धात् ॥ विवेकचूडामणि-४६
(śraddhābhakti dhyānayoganmumukṣormukterhetūnvakti sākṣātchrutergīḥ |
yovaiteṣveva tiṣṭhatyamuṣyamokṣo:'vidyākalpitāddehabandhāt || vivekacūḍāmaṇi-46)

[Faith, devotion, meditation and Yoga — these are shown by the sruti as immediate causes leading to the liberation of a seeker. Whosoever dwells in them gets liberated from the bodily bondage arising from ignorance.]

If the same text, viz., vivekacūḍāmaṇi can have both the above verses, what is its reliability? Sankara, I understand, has not used the word bhakti anywhere in his bhashyas of the prasthānatraya; he emphasizes only jnaana.

The south Indian edition of vivekacūḍāmaṇi consists of 451 verses only as against 580 in the Gita Press and Advaita Ashrama editions. Hence there is lot of doubt about how authentic the vivekacūḍāmaṇi itself is!

(Thanks are due to the book "Adi Sankara's Vision of Reality" by Vidyabhushanam, Vidyavachaspati V. Panoli : Mathrubhumi Prining & Publishing Co. Ltd., Calicut-673001.

Sri Sangom Ji,

What is the irrefutable evidence presented by you?. Is it a Supreme Court? It shows your childish behaviour. How can you say it is irrefutable evidence?. It can even prove otherwise. Who knows? Number one, you always assume the position of a Judge and decide things in your favour and do write blah...... blah....... . Which is not right especially in a Forum like this. Mind that..

What is there is to wriggle? It is not someone commentary. It is Swami Chinmayananda's commentary. How can you say it is so called verse? Are you to the competent Authority to decide the number of verses in the Vivekachoodamani. If you have any dispute over the verse sue the publisher. Otherwise, it is fair to accept.

When you have your own misgivings about the Vivekachoodamani and its authenticity, why do you site few verses and go on to say that you have got an irrefutable evidence and want to raise up your collar and proudly say that you have got a point.

Now let me come to the subject: What is Bhakti: Bhakti yoga is a real, genuine search after the Lord, a search begining continuing, and ending in love. One single moment of the madness of extreme love of God brings us eternal freedom. "Bhakti" says Narada in his explanation of the bhakti aphorisms, "is intense love of God". "When a man gets it, he loves all, hates none. He becomes satisfied forever. "This love cannot be reduced to any earthly benefit". because as long as wordly desires last, that kind of love does not come. "Bhakti is greater than karma, greater than yoga". because these are intended for an object in view, while bhakti is its own fruition, "its own means and its own end". (Thanks for the Book - VEDANTA VOICE OF FREEDOM 1987 - By Swami Vivekananda)

Through a discipline of mind and reason (jnana margam, samyak jnanam), through heart and love (Bakti margam, samyak darsanam) and through will and power (Karma margam, samyak caritram) what, incidentally accompalished is an enhancement and exaltation of life - Source: Hindu Spirituality Vedas through Vedanta - By Krishna Sivaraman.

It is believed that one can very well attain Mukthi through Bhakti Margam too as per Vedanta. You go by your favourite jnana marga let me go by my believed bakthi marga.

As I don't want to be a party to derail this thread further, I refrain from replying your future esteemed findings.