<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Krishna is consider Brahman and is both personal and impersonal;but personal aspect is seen more important then impersonal aspect<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The Gita supports both views of Krishna equally. (Not the interpretation given in ISKCON's "The Bhagavad Gita As It Is", I admit, but they take a lot of liberties in interpreting certain shlokas and go off on some distant tangent for each verse.)
In fact, if you read just a translation of the Gita - that is, a translation without ISKCON "interpretation" bits - then you come to the part where Krishna talks about Brahman. He uses the exact same ideas to describe Brahman as are used in parts of the Upanishads. Then he explains to Arjuna that he (Krishna) is Brahman, so Arjuna may know who he is and recognise him from Arjuna's schooling in Hindu Dharma.
The personal and impersonal views of Brahman are supported in Hinduism no matter what our Ishtadevams are. There are example shlokas for Devi, Shiva, Ganapathi and Skanda (Murugar) that describe them all as Brahman. Krishna most certainly is Brahman. But so are these others I've listed.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Th other hindu Gods are seen as lesser gods ,stil they (and we humans) are personal expansions of Krishna.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->One may substitute the name "Krishna" there with any other of the Hindu Gods I've mentioned and the second half of the sentence still holds true (the first half is a point of view only). Many Vaishnavas do see the other Gods as minor or having specific abilities/fields of action and therefore not capable of giving final/lasting liberation. But that is not the view of any other Hindu streams where different Gods are central.
In Hindu Dharma in general, humans, as also other creatures, are seen as quantitatively - but not qualitatively - less than Bhagavan (and only while our delusion of separateness from Brahman lasts). This view is not unique to ISKCON's reworked views of Vaishnavism.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The second part of the talk was about WHY many members of Iskon see christian God or Jesus as a manifestation of Krishna. The answer was that God manifest even in other religions not only in India land,that christian Bible or islamic Quran are corupted by later christian or muslims and the Jesus teaching must be in original much more similar whit vedic teachings.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->I know God/Kamisama/the Grand Spirit manifests in all countries. But jesus simply never existed. Regardless, nothing about the religion around him even brought forth good. If it did, it should not have mattered whether he existed or not. (Quran got corrupted? Must be the entire Quran and the uncorrupted bits were either never there or are lost forever.)
This ambivalence in ISKCON (and there are others guilty of something somewhat similar) is what annoys me. No: christianity and islam are not saying the same thing as Taoism or Hindu Dharma. They've had ~1.5 millennia to prove where they stand on universality, and yet every single action and treatise has shown that their teachings are diametrically opposed to that of Natural Religions.
(But good people do have the ability to draw good from everything - which says more about them than it does about their christoislamism.)
My question is, why can ISKCON allow for jesus and allah but will not budge an inch on Shiva and Ganapathi for instance?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->This teaching is diferent the Mayavada(impersonal) schools of hinduism ,which subordonate personal aspect of God the the impersonal one(person is just a temporaly ilusion),among impersonal school being shaiva and buddhism.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->You are mistaken about Shaiva tradition. Like devotion to Krishna, it comes in both impersonal and personal understanding of Shiva. The personal view of Shiva is no less deeply devotional than the more well-known (outside India) one about Krishna.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->SHiva is consider a great devotee of Krishna and he is responsable whit management of Maya(ilusion).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->All Hindu Gods are great devotees of each other (whenever there is another God in the picture). But you will never find Krishna saying that Shiva is a lesser God. Simply because Krishna acknowledges he *is* Shiva. In fact, I think it is in the (<b>EDITED</b> previous error
Mahabharata, where Krishna has a big explanation on who Shiva is and how Shiva is GOD. But of course Krishna would say that, because he is Shiva.
Have you ever heard of the God "Shankara Narayanan" - he is the famous amalgamation of Shiva and Mahavishnu, just like Ardhanareeshwarar is one of Shiva and Uma. As Shankara Narayanan, this manifestation shows the oneness of both these forms of the Hindu understanding of God.
Shiva is said to be the Universe (all of creation) and Mahavishnu is said to be in the soul of every particle thereof. It is two ways of saying the same: infinite space is Shiva and infinite innerspace is Mahavishnu. Where does one begin and the other end? Everywhere and nowhere. They are the same.
There are Shlokas were Shiva alone is described as creator, preserver and dissolver of the Universe. The same is said of Krishna (and so too Devi). But that is because these - our central Gods - are *all* Brahman.
In the Shaiva view, Shiva is seen as the origin of all. In the Vaishnava view, Mahavishnu is. And the same goes for Uma. But in each view, the central God's qualities is described exactly the same: Brahman. They are the same.
Anyway, I've digressed. My point was: where does ISKCON get this incredible understanding and sympathy for the unrelenting christian and islamic ideas of "God" and yet will not give equal dues (as they give for jehovallah) to the rest of Hindu Dharma's views on manifestions of Brahman.
You may think I am petty in arguing that Jesus/christian god and allah are not the same as the Hindu view of God. That reminds me of something. Long ago, I had a very foolish conversation with a Korean christian where I listed all the qualities of the general "God" idea: good, powerful, blablabla (I was using simple basic ideas so she could agree with me), then I explained how that proves that the Hindu God was no different and she needn't think Hinduism was 'evil'. But everytime I got to Hindu God she would shake her head violently and say that our God was not at all the same and was false. I argued that if hers was the creator of everything and mine was too - if hers was infinitely good and parent of all, and mine was too - then (said I) was it not sensible that both our Gods were the same. NO she yelled (several times) and I never tried reasoning with her about *that* again. But the futile exercise did teach me a lot. I was taken aback by her adamant refusal to see sense then, but now I understand what it is in christoislamism that makes them so contrary.
In time I learnt to see what she meant, but from <i>my</i> end - because I learnt of her religion by reading the bible. Her god and my God are not the same, as trite as it sounds now that I am (superficially regarded) repeating her. The Christian view of God really is utterly different. It will not stand any other name nor any other description for God than that laid out in the Bible. Everything else is regarded "false, hateful, anti-christian". Their way or the highway. Hindu/Natural Gods are not like that. For instance, their god must be and *is* male. Because genderlessness is something beyond their understanding (until the Hindu introduces the more open people among them to the idea).
For ISKCON to compare and equate the universality of the Hindu idea of God/Natural Religions idea of God with christianism, is to fall into the same trap of the general Hindu mindset: assuming that every other religion has the same understanding of God. It is something I have to learn and relearn regularly, as I find it has several layers. Christianity and islam have very *very* particular descriptions of God - and these descriptions do not match with Hinduism at all (other than on the surface where we use terms like "creator", "good" - until we dig deeper and find the meanings for these as given in the respective religions), except when applying the usual strained interpretations Hindus (the usual suspects) give for the Bible and Quran. The Hindu is capable of great self-delusion and will see the whole Hindu literature magically mirrored in the bible/koran. Let me ask this, why is the Hindu capable of understanding/making such profound interpretations of the bible and koran - when not a single christian or muslim has ever viewed the material in the same way (unless influenced by Hindus). Answer: because we are projecting Hindu views of divinity onto the bible and koran. We tend to twist their passages that are obscure enough into what we would like them to say. (And we are very good at doing this, because we are desperate enough to do it. Everyone likes to think the world is rosy and "all everyone wants, is to live in peace". By way of comparison, there's very little effort required on my part to see similarities with the North American native American Grand Spirit or with Taoism.)
So much for the common mistake that ISKCON makes. But it's thereafter that it makes a mad misstep. Though they are able to extend this Dharmic universality to the christian and islamic concepts of God, they will not dream of allowing the same for other central Gods in Hinduism - even though these are known to be Brahman, same as Krishna. (In fact, ISKCON behaves rather christoislamic in this insistence - the way they make this insistence about Krishna is very christoislamically monotheist. It's almost like they want to swallow the name of Krishna up in some Abrahamic worldview and segregate the name from the rest of Hindu Dharma.)
As I said, it's alienated me entirely.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->a vaishnava convert a muslim to hinduism by explaining <b>how muslims scholar missinterpret the nature of God presented in Quran</b>(platonic influence in islam theology?).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->As I said, Hindu's capability of self-delusion: "we know islam better than muslims do". (Really?)
But no matter. In this case, the muslim convert obviously has the same understanding of God as the Hindu. Hence the end result is that the muslim merely wandered from his personal religion that he thought was called "islam" to the same religion he now calls Hinduism. (Or alternatively, once exposed to the Hindu idea/Natural Religion's idea of God, the former muslim found it resonated with him/her better.) But the islamic idea of "God" and Natural Religions's understanding of what God entails are <i>not</i> the same.
In fact, if you read just a translation of the Gita - that is, a translation without ISKCON "interpretation" bits - then you come to the part where Krishna talks about Brahman. He uses the exact same ideas to describe Brahman as are used in parts of the Upanishads. Then he explains to Arjuna that he (Krishna) is Brahman, so Arjuna may know who he is and recognise him from Arjuna's schooling in Hindu Dharma.
The personal and impersonal views of Brahman are supported in Hinduism no matter what our Ishtadevams are. There are example shlokas for Devi, Shiva, Ganapathi and Skanda (Murugar) that describe them all as Brahman. Krishna most certainly is Brahman. But so are these others I've listed.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Th other hindu Gods are seen as lesser gods ,stil they (and we humans) are personal expansions of Krishna.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->One may substitute the name "Krishna" there with any other of the Hindu Gods I've mentioned and the second half of the sentence still holds true (the first half is a point of view only). Many Vaishnavas do see the other Gods as minor or having specific abilities/fields of action and therefore not capable of giving final/lasting liberation. But that is not the view of any other Hindu streams where different Gods are central.
In Hindu Dharma in general, humans, as also other creatures, are seen as quantitatively - but not qualitatively - less than Bhagavan (and only while our delusion of separateness from Brahman lasts). This view is not unique to ISKCON's reworked views of Vaishnavism.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The second part of the talk was about WHY many members of Iskon see christian God or Jesus as a manifestation of Krishna. The answer was that God manifest even in other religions not only in India land,that christian Bible or islamic Quran are corupted by later christian or muslims and the Jesus teaching must be in original much more similar whit vedic teachings.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->I know God/Kamisama/the Grand Spirit manifests in all countries. But jesus simply never existed. Regardless, nothing about the religion around him even brought forth good. If it did, it should not have mattered whether he existed or not. (Quran got corrupted? Must be the entire Quran and the uncorrupted bits were either never there or are lost forever.)
This ambivalence in ISKCON (and there are others guilty of something somewhat similar) is what annoys me. No: christianity and islam are not saying the same thing as Taoism or Hindu Dharma. They've had ~1.5 millennia to prove where they stand on universality, and yet every single action and treatise has shown that their teachings are diametrically opposed to that of Natural Religions.
(But good people do have the ability to draw good from everything - which says more about them than it does about their christoislamism.)
My question is, why can ISKCON allow for jesus and allah but will not budge an inch on Shiva and Ganapathi for instance?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->This teaching is diferent the Mayavada(impersonal) schools of hinduism ,which subordonate personal aspect of God the the impersonal one(person is just a temporaly ilusion),among impersonal school being shaiva and buddhism.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->You are mistaken about Shaiva tradition. Like devotion to Krishna, it comes in both impersonal and personal understanding of Shiva. The personal view of Shiva is no less deeply devotional than the more well-known (outside India) one about Krishna.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->SHiva is consider a great devotee of Krishna and he is responsable whit management of Maya(ilusion).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->All Hindu Gods are great devotees of each other (whenever there is another God in the picture). But you will never find Krishna saying that Shiva is a lesser God. Simply because Krishna acknowledges he *is* Shiva. In fact, I think it is in the (<b>EDITED</b> previous error
Mahabharata, where Krishna has a big explanation on who Shiva is and how Shiva is GOD. But of course Krishna would say that, because he is Shiva.Have you ever heard of the God "Shankara Narayanan" - he is the famous amalgamation of Shiva and Mahavishnu, just like Ardhanareeshwarar is one of Shiva and Uma. As Shankara Narayanan, this manifestation shows the oneness of both these forms of the Hindu understanding of God.
Shiva is said to be the Universe (all of creation) and Mahavishnu is said to be in the soul of every particle thereof. It is two ways of saying the same: infinite space is Shiva and infinite innerspace is Mahavishnu. Where does one begin and the other end? Everywhere and nowhere. They are the same.
There are Shlokas were Shiva alone is described as creator, preserver and dissolver of the Universe. The same is said of Krishna (and so too Devi). But that is because these - our central Gods - are *all* Brahman.
In the Shaiva view, Shiva is seen as the origin of all. In the Vaishnava view, Mahavishnu is. And the same goes for Uma. But in each view, the central God's qualities is described exactly the same: Brahman. They are the same.
Anyway, I've digressed. My point was: where does ISKCON get this incredible understanding and sympathy for the unrelenting christian and islamic ideas of "God" and yet will not give equal dues (as they give for jehovallah) to the rest of Hindu Dharma's views on manifestions of Brahman.
You may think I am petty in arguing that Jesus/christian god and allah are not the same as the Hindu view of God. That reminds me of something. Long ago, I had a very foolish conversation with a Korean christian where I listed all the qualities of the general "God" idea: good, powerful, blablabla (I was using simple basic ideas so she could agree with me), then I explained how that proves that the Hindu God was no different and she needn't think Hinduism was 'evil'. But everytime I got to Hindu God she would shake her head violently and say that our God was not at all the same and was false. I argued that if hers was the creator of everything and mine was too - if hers was infinitely good and parent of all, and mine was too - then (said I) was it not sensible that both our Gods were the same. NO she yelled (several times) and I never tried reasoning with her about *that* again. But the futile exercise did teach me a lot. I was taken aback by her adamant refusal to see sense then, but now I understand what it is in christoislamism that makes them so contrary.
In time I learnt to see what she meant, but from <i>my</i> end - because I learnt of her religion by reading the bible. Her god and my God are not the same, as trite as it sounds now that I am (superficially regarded) repeating her. The Christian view of God really is utterly different. It will not stand any other name nor any other description for God than that laid out in the Bible. Everything else is regarded "false, hateful, anti-christian". Their way or the highway. Hindu/Natural Gods are not like that. For instance, their god must be and *is* male. Because genderlessness is something beyond their understanding (until the Hindu introduces the more open people among them to the idea).
For ISKCON to compare and equate the universality of the Hindu idea of God/Natural Religions idea of God with christianism, is to fall into the same trap of the general Hindu mindset: assuming that every other religion has the same understanding of God. It is something I have to learn and relearn regularly, as I find it has several layers. Christianity and islam have very *very* particular descriptions of God - and these descriptions do not match with Hinduism at all (other than on the surface where we use terms like "creator", "good" - until we dig deeper and find the meanings for these as given in the respective religions), except when applying the usual strained interpretations Hindus (the usual suspects) give for the Bible and Quran. The Hindu is capable of great self-delusion and will see the whole Hindu literature magically mirrored in the bible/koran. Let me ask this, why is the Hindu capable of understanding/making such profound interpretations of the bible and koran - when not a single christian or muslim has ever viewed the material in the same way (unless influenced by Hindus). Answer: because we are projecting Hindu views of divinity onto the bible and koran. We tend to twist their passages that are obscure enough into what we would like them to say. (And we are very good at doing this, because we are desperate enough to do it. Everyone likes to think the world is rosy and "all everyone wants, is to live in peace". By way of comparison, there's very little effort required on my part to see similarities with the North American native American Grand Spirit or with Taoism.)
So much for the common mistake that ISKCON makes. But it's thereafter that it makes a mad misstep. Though they are able to extend this Dharmic universality to the christian and islamic concepts of God, they will not dream of allowing the same for other central Gods in Hinduism - even though these are known to be Brahman, same as Krishna. (In fact, ISKCON behaves rather christoislamic in this insistence - the way they make this insistence about Krishna is very christoislamically monotheist. It's almost like they want to swallow the name of Krishna up in some Abrahamic worldview and segregate the name from the rest of Hindu Dharma.)
As I said, it's alienated me entirely.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->a vaishnava convert a muslim to hinduism by explaining <b>how muslims scholar missinterpret the nature of God presented in Quran</b>(platonic influence in islam theology?).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->As I said, Hindu's capability of self-delusion: "we know islam better than muslims do". (Really?)
But no matter. In this case, the muslim convert obviously has the same understanding of God as the Hindu. Hence the end result is that the muslim merely wandered from his personal religion that he thought was called "islam" to the same religion he now calls Hinduism. (Or alternatively, once exposed to the Hindu idea/Natural Religion's idea of God, the former muslim found it resonated with him/her better.) But the islamic idea of "God" and Natural Religions's understanding of what God entails are <i>not</i> the same.