Hello upasaka ( one who meditates)
I was just wondering if this would be of interest to kick 'round.
If you could ask one or two questions that would just satisfy you, delight you, or bring you some level of Ahhaaa! and joy to know without any doubts, what would you ask?
I have no objective or goal - just curious what others ponder - perhaps this is dull and will fall by the wayside, and suggests I need a hobby, but if I could ask a question or two to a great sage, I would submit the following:
When one becomes totally complete (Kavaliya, Dharmamega, Brahman Consciousness) and shares almost the same ability as Iswara, why would it be without merit to rid the world of its ignorance so all can experience the SELF? Of what divine value is it for us to experience Kali Yuga in ignorance, when though your intent , you could perhaps end this ignorance we ( I ) possess? IN your eyes the world is perfect and without flaw - it is yet to be that in my eyes.
Yes, I know of my past actions brings me this life, yes I understand that I am in essense a spark of the divine, yet I still do not understand that if you possess the power to bring ultimate good to the family of man, Why not make it so? What is there to loose?
Sarvam khalu idam Brahm, ‘All of this indeed is Brahman’
Frank In San Diego
The world is absolutely perfect as-is and completely permeated with love (you know this intellectually, but I’m not sure you feel it). Ignorance is love. Knowledge is love. There’s nothing special about knowledge. The dichotomy of knowledge versus ignorances is, like all dichotomies, false and strictly a product of the mind. Renounce your attachment to knowledge and your disapproval of ignorance will vanish with it.
If the creative fabric of the universe needs to draw a distinction (for the first time in all these eons) and favor knowledge over ignorance, there’d be no stopping, until we all have plasma televisions and no mattress has lumps.
We can experience nothing BUT Self. We just give it lots of different names, due to a fundamental delusion. The quest for self is just part of the delusion. There’s nowhere to go and nothing to pursue. We do AYP simply to fully open to what already is.
Hello Jim, Thanks for the response.
I am not sure you are offering-up a postulate or answering the question I posed. I do agree the universe is perfect as it is, yet that was not my question.
I do not agree the renouncing part, because it takes more then a phrase, “I renounce this or that” and all becomes right, or aligned.
The ignorance part , is not one of facts, figures, sruti or smurti. Ignorance has two parts as far I can can tell:
That ignorance is a [ground-in] perception that all of this creation as a whole (Brahman) is measured out as the many and;
The individual does not know his/her cosmic status…that is pure ignorance; [“know” in this case means direct cognized daily experience]. I do renounce that I am not what I see, that all this “diversity” is not my true, or is substantial. This comes from experience, inference, judgement, and others that came before all of us and chose to leave us clues , your “bird seed” appoach.
To this I am greatful. So Jim, what’s your one question that you ponder? Another one of mine is why did God create mosquito’s or instruct them to bite humans? a most annoying insect!
Peace,
Frank In San Diego
Sorry, frank, I’ve been neurotically honing my reply while you’ve been replying (can’t help it…I’m really driven to trying to be as clear as possible).
But I’ll stop now in case you want to hone YOUR reply to fit my reply (which is no longer the reply you were replying to!).
Got that?
Will check in tomorrow and see if anything’s changed.
My question du jour is: what about starving suffering babies?
I don’t see their suffering as a consequence of their misapprehension of the nature of existence. They’re just babies! I don’t see a lot of such babies here in wealthy America. If I did see some (rather than just visualize them) could I still see a loving God in literally everything? Could I decline to label or judge the experience? Could I get past the worldly exterior of the experience and see it as just another facet of perfection?
It’s a very old question, but it’s also a really good one. I’ve read good answers. I could probably even write one or two. But I don’t know if I viscerally believe them.
Hello Jim,
re: your honing - Clarity is a virtue I respect…thanks for even giving the cycles to consider an in-depth response.
re: Suffering - the question of the ages, yes? this was the very crux of Arjuna’s angst with the great war… to kill family, cause suffering, etc.
Suffering and babies…the conundrum of the millennium. This was posed to a very wise man in the following manner:
“Why sould babies suffer? they did nothing wrong.” His response was “how do you know?”.
I cannot conclude from this answer that anyone deserves suffering, or you sew what you reap but I know this to be an undisputable law of this creation.
This is just a tough question that any parent stuggles with. From this only compassion for the family of man must develop. Truly an enlightened vision is needed to rationalze these types of events.
Thanks again for the posts. Let me know what your take is on this…
Peace,
Frank In San Diego
Hi Frank:
I think the answer to your first question is, yes, God can eliminate ignorance, but it must be through the questioner. And who is the questioner? Why, he/she is God. Only if God is presumed to be separate from self is there the dilemma. Recognition of God being within increases the flow of bhakti leading to practices and the elimination of ignorance – in the questioner and in everyone.
On your second question, who is it that decides that someone is suffering? Suffering is identification with pain, and how can we impose that on others, least of all babies? Certainly no one wishes for there to be starving babies. Yet, the fact that they are there provides the opportunity to move beyond judgments on suffering, and simply act with divine love. Again, the question is a call for the questioner to act.
The American spiritual teacher, Ram Das, said that in all of his travelling around the world over the years to help disadvantaged people, the greatest suffering he ever saw was in the corporate board rooms of America. Why? Because these were the people most identified with their personal self-interest and least aware of the wholeness of life. Net result – acute separation and great suffering…
Of course, we can say that the corporate executives picked their own fate. But can we be absolutely sure that the starving babies did not? One thing is certain. There are opportunities to dissolve ignorance everywhere, beginning right where we are sitting. We can be sure God is in the details of that.
My one question is: How can we provide everyone on earth the means to live the reality of God within full time, if they choose to?
The guru is in you.
Hey! You guys are trying to answer Frank’s question! He’s asking you to ask one of your own! Are we going to hear what your own big questions are?
My big question is, right now, is it true that we reincarnate (and move on towards perfection)? Or is one life just one life?
-D
P.S. Frank’s question is an interesting one though … and I am glad for your attempts at an answer…
All right. Now I can’t myself resist taking a stab at answering the Big Question Frank asked…
My own view (and it is actually quite close in a way to the one that Yogani put forward) is that, whereas God is often personified, I don’t expect God to be ultimately person-like at all.
The attributes that we are expecting of God, whereby we expect God to behave in a certain way (as if God were a compassionate person) are particular attributes of human animals as those human animals become more refined and ‘pure’. One of the attributes which we tacitly expect from God is a division into self-and-other which I expect not to exist in God at all.
But these attributes represent function in the relative (and finite) plane of existence, albeit a more refined and ‘pure’ level of function there.
Where as the image of God as compassionate might be appropriate and useful, I don’t think God is like a compassionate person; I expect the compassion of God (to the extent that the phrase is useful) not to be like person-to-person compassion.
We are not really aware of it, but thinking is actually a bodily function, just as digesting is a bodily function. Digesting is done by a creature with finite chemical energy, who can take some energy from some finite food; thinking is done by a creature with finite information, who can gain some vision by processing some finite information. Likewise, choosing is a bodily function. Not as I see it, a function of the infinite.
When we wonder about why God is not choosing to make it better for us, we are projecting our images of a developed (but finite) being onto what is truly an ineffible and infinite being.
-D
What happens when we die?
This question has been the source of endless pain and confusion throughout the ages. Those who profess to know are also in pain and confusion, b’c the simple fact is, no one does. It’s the great mystery. We have the expectation that we won’t be disappointed (most of us), but we just don’t know.
I get a second question? It’s this: Why did Jesus do it?
m
How can we resist the urge to take a stab at these questions?
Meg, our meditations are working to open, open, open us. The more we do it, the less of “us” we feel, and the more of the everything we inhabit. Death strikes me as the ultimate opening. Will there still be a chocolate loving Meg on a cloud somewhere? I kind of doubt it. Reincarnation as it’s popular understood - your “personal” energy and baggage squirted into a different form? It doesn’t strike me as believable, but a lot of stuff I didn’t find believable a few years ago (believed by the same smart guys) has become manifest. The only thing that makes sense is for death to be the ultimate fulfillment of the liberation we seek. We become everything and nothing. And the “everything” part certainly does include our “karma” (ties and attachments), our energy, etc etc…and this contrail certainly does affect all the rest.
Re: Jesus, it was someone speaking the truth and being crucified for it. It’s happened countless times before and since, usually without the actual cross.
I don’t believe the universe operates via scales of justice. If it did, there’d be a lot more justice in the world. I see precisely none (not bitter, just realistic).
Yogani, nice answer. You could be perceived to be dancing around the question, but you’re shedding light as you dance. Indeed, if we feel the divine in everything but make exceptions for extreme cases, there are all sorts of other extreme cases…and slightly less extreme cases…and much less extreme cases, as we return to the sort of distinction drawing (i.e. dualistic judgement and attachment) that muddied our windows in the first place. The answer, I think, is that while I’m able (thanks to AYP) to embrace the world after decades of recoiling and blocking, I’m not yet prepared to embrace the more extreme cases. The shortfall is in me, not the world. And the other answer - which you hinted at, but didn’t quite state full-on - is that if I reach the point where I could “go there”, my capacity for empathy and compassion would rise to fit the situation. Nobody ever said that a clear view of the world was always something to smile at. And everybody says the clearer you get, the more you’re propelled to try to help.
Gosh, a chance to answer a Yogani question! I’ll take a stab!
By each of us following our urge to live more deeply in that reality with as much diligence as possible (via AYP or whatever spiritual practice we’re engaged in). Most people have only a faint urge (so faint it’s covered over by The Noise). We’re unfathomably lucky to be gifted with a stronger urge. To squander this good fortune would be the most calamitous of lost opportunities, because it’s not just a shame for us, but for everyone around us. It’s like popcorn popping: highly contagious. All those who feel the sizzle must cultivate their kernals.
If they “choose to”, they’re in luck. Once they’re hooked, it’s only a matter of time before they come home. The methodology is out there. Ten thousand books, all saying the same thing in a slightly different way. Including, thankfully, AYP, which anyone with an Internet connection can find and benefit from!
Hi Jim,
I feel Yogani’s question was more like…what if everyone choses and wants to meditate “full time”? Who will take care of the other material things in the world?
I might be wrong.
Genes are a result of karma RATHER THAN A CAUSE OF IT - Yogani
I just realized: our propulsion to help is part of what makes the universe beautiful! I am not apart from it all observing in, I am in this painting! With no suffering babies and such, there’d be no call for our compassion, and without our compassion, the world wouldn’t be as beautiful.
That doesn’t get me all the way there, but it helps.
Meg’s Question: What happens when we die? David’s Question: My big question is, right now, is it true that we reincarnate (and move on towards perfection)? Or is one life just one life? Yogani’s question: How can we provide everyone on earth the means to live the reality of God within full time, if they choose to? Jim’s Question: My question du jour is: what about starving suffering babies? Frank’s two part question:
(1) why did God create mosquito’s or instruct them to bite humans? a most annoying insect!
(2) When one becomes totally complete (Kavaliya, Dharmamega, Brahman Consciousness) and shares almost same ability as Iswara, why would it be without merit to rid the world of its ignorance so all can experience the SELF? Of what divine value is it for us to experience Kali Yuga in ignorance, when though your intent , you could perhaps end this ignorance we ( I ) possess? What great questions!(less the mosquito one)
Note the desire of all of us to take a stab and answer theses? The divine in you wishes to reach out to help the divine in us all. “all love is directed towards the SELF” - Sage Yajnavalkya
>>> Meg & David’s - “what happens after you die?” + reincarnation and moving on.
If you wish to read about this, consider the Kathopanishad, starting Chapt II; Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the Saririka-brahmana which is in Chapt IV. You will find it interesting reading if you care to pursue.
I still have a few more questions, but will await others to get theirs in and share their brillance and the airwaves!
Peace,
Frank In San Diego
I think Yogani’s example of a room with many windows explains this. If one window gets cleaned that will definitely bring more light inside and helps other windows clean too. That is how the enlightened man helps in getting others enlightened - by cleaning his window. Why cant he clean everybody else’s windows? I dont think he has the power because he is not enlightened “enough” (because he realizes he is everyone and hence he still needs purification coz others need it). It is a collective goal that we are all progressing towards. Nobody is completely englightened till everybody else is.
Coming to the concept of God, whether there’s a god or not, there’s definitely an equalizer. They call it the law of karma - every action that you do goes around and comes back to you for sure. We are just like many drops in an ocean. If we push other water drops, that wave created will go and will push us back sometime. It is just like Newtons action and reaction law. Not god punishing you for your sins or anything. If we dont believe in reincarnation definitely the world appears injust. I think reincarnation clears up lot of these things - even babies suffering.
Genes are a result of karma RATHER THAN A CAUSE OF IT - Yogani
Hi Near:
Jim got it mostly right. It was actually a practical question. How do we reach everyone around the world with the knowledge of open source self-directed practices, so they will be free to choose them when they wish? You can see where my head and heart are these days. In the trenches of applied yoga science…
The guru is in you.
