<!--QuoteBegin-Shambhu+May 3 2008, 04:15 AM-->QUOTE(Shambhu @ May 3 2008, 04:15 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->About Vishnu etc: They think every universe has its own Bramha-Vishnu-Mahesh, and Krishna is the ulitimate one ruler of all of them. Man, they need to stop all this retro-fitting BS.[right][snapback]81198[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->ISKCON has some very odd ideas. The most offensive is how they could ever place Krishna alongside the invented gangster jeebusjehovallah. That is just SOOoooo wrong. <!--emo&:mad--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
In Hindu Dharma, MahaVishnu <i>does</i> give rise to everything, just like Shiva gives rise to everything, and Lalitha gives rise to everything, and ... you see the pattern. (Because they are all Brahman/Purusha Prakriti/Shiva-Shakti - you know, the "All".)
As Krishna explains in the Gita, from him (he explains how he is Brahman) emerges all of existence and at dissolution's end we return/contract (in)to him. Krishna, when he speaks in the Gita, speaks openly in his capacity as MahaVishnu: that is, he is then no longer restricting himself to the role that he intended as the Avataram; no longer keeping Arjuna - and others fortunate enough to be listening - in the dark as to who he is. (At which point Arjuna is astounded and even apologetic, because he didn't realise who Krishna was. Arjuna says something along the lines of "all those times I joked with you I never meant to have said anything disrespectful".)
Mahavishnu, when he has created everything, enters into every particle. He and Lakshmi are there in every one of us. Just like Uma-Shankar are. There is no escaping them <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Since the topic is Mahavishnu/Krishna: Rama, Krishna, Narasimha... the avatarams - they are all MahaVishnu to the fullest. Hence Brahman to the fullest. There is no difference between praying to one or the other. It is as we choose. (Choose all!) In so far as there are any 'differences' between Shiva, Vishnu, Meenakshi or our other Gods/Goddesses - they are only in terms of their manifestation. And yet each manifestation is entirely complete in him/herself. You need no other. They are all perfect, different, yet the same manifestations. I don't know if it's a good analogy but it's like viewing the universe at a different angle in order to understand it from another side, while it's still the same universe ultimately.
Again, who we choose depends on us. And we needn't really choose between them at all, as we can have all of them at the same time, depending on whether one finds it easier to see them as distinct or the same.
But the modern nonsense of jeebusjehovallah being "the same as our Gods too" is just pure fiction though. Besides, jeebusjehovallah is not just merely fiction himself, he is also a very evil character; the most monstrous villain ever presented in literature. And sadly, fiction <i>does</i> kill: as the ideologies of the koran and bible regularly do.
Thus there are many views on Divinity/Gods in Hindu Dharma (maybe I should have inserted the above universe analogy here). And Hindus never found them confusing or mutually conflicting because they aren't conflicting - precisely in the same manner as how <b>MahaVishnu's names include both Eka and Naika: "One" and "Many"</b> (naika 'many' comes from na eka = 'not one'; explanation taken from a Hindu booklet on Vishnu's names that I possess). We are not monopolytheists. Number games are meaningless in Hinduism, as One and Infinity (and everything in between) are all Hindu ways of looking at Divinity/God. Form and formless. Gendered and genderless. Manifest and unmanifested. Present here, there, everywhere and Beyond. All of this is mentioned in the Gita and explained much better there. Tao is unmanifest and everywhere, even though it is often abstracted/referred to as feminine in spite of the formlessness. Kami can be manifest and unmanifest. Great Spirit is manifest and unmanifest and is beyond, is here, there everywhere.
Compare that with jeebusjehovallah (for the moment, assume he exists): his character is very gendered - absolutely gendered. Until recent times his location was fixed as the sky ("heaven, de hemel, himmel") until people actually went up into the sky and space and found that even there he didn't exist. In christoislamism, his character is not allowed to be visible: the most faithful christian <i>cannot</i> see him in this life (this is as per christian theology which is unrelenting on this point; and there are many priestly theological refutations of what is meant by seeing "as a child" - or whatever the biblical phrase was, and how it <i>does not</i> mean seeing god).
Jeebusjehovallah is one, exactly one. Never more. Complicated christian "maths" is used to show that their holy ghost, jesus and jehovallah are still monotheistically one... Actually, that depends on the christian sect and century. In the early centuries, the innumerable inimical christian sects argued on the True Nature of jeebus (most of them killed each other until mostly one kind remains today): see http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/nestorian.html It's <b>hysterical</b>.
But after all that they will declare that the Hindu is the one who is confused. No we're not. Because for us, 1 to Infinity have always all represented the same thing: our Divinity, viewed as our Bhagavan and/or Devi and/or Ishvara and/or Umachi and/or ... who exist(s) everywhere.
In Hindu Dharma, MahaVishnu <i>does</i> give rise to everything, just like Shiva gives rise to everything, and Lalitha gives rise to everything, and ... you see the pattern. (Because they are all Brahman/Purusha Prakriti/Shiva-Shakti - you know, the "All".)
As Krishna explains in the Gita, from him (he explains how he is Brahman) emerges all of existence and at dissolution's end we return/contract (in)to him. Krishna, when he speaks in the Gita, speaks openly in his capacity as MahaVishnu: that is, he is then no longer restricting himself to the role that he intended as the Avataram; no longer keeping Arjuna - and others fortunate enough to be listening - in the dark as to who he is. (At which point Arjuna is astounded and even apologetic, because he didn't realise who Krishna was. Arjuna says something along the lines of "all those times I joked with you I never meant to have said anything disrespectful".)
Mahavishnu, when he has created everything, enters into every particle. He and Lakshmi are there in every one of us. Just like Uma-Shankar are. There is no escaping them <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->Since the topic is Mahavishnu/Krishna: Rama, Krishna, Narasimha... the avatarams - they are all MahaVishnu to the fullest. Hence Brahman to the fullest. There is no difference between praying to one or the other. It is as we choose. (Choose all!) In so far as there are any 'differences' between Shiva, Vishnu, Meenakshi or our other Gods/Goddesses - they are only in terms of their manifestation. And yet each manifestation is entirely complete in him/herself. You need no other. They are all perfect, different, yet the same manifestations. I don't know if it's a good analogy but it's like viewing the universe at a different angle in order to understand it from another side, while it's still the same universe ultimately.
Again, who we choose depends on us. And we needn't really choose between them at all, as we can have all of them at the same time, depending on whether one finds it easier to see them as distinct or the same.
But the modern nonsense of jeebusjehovallah being "the same as our Gods too" is just pure fiction though. Besides, jeebusjehovallah is not just merely fiction himself, he is also a very evil character; the most monstrous villain ever presented in literature. And sadly, fiction <i>does</i> kill: as the ideologies of the koran and bible regularly do.
Thus there are many views on Divinity/Gods in Hindu Dharma (maybe I should have inserted the above universe analogy here). And Hindus never found them confusing or mutually conflicting because they aren't conflicting - precisely in the same manner as how <b>MahaVishnu's names include both Eka and Naika: "One" and "Many"</b> (naika 'many' comes from na eka = 'not one'; explanation taken from a Hindu booklet on Vishnu's names that I possess). We are not monopolytheists. Number games are meaningless in Hinduism, as One and Infinity (and everything in between) are all Hindu ways of looking at Divinity/God. Form and formless. Gendered and genderless. Manifest and unmanifested. Present here, there, everywhere and Beyond. All of this is mentioned in the Gita and explained much better there. Tao is unmanifest and everywhere, even though it is often abstracted/referred to as feminine in spite of the formlessness. Kami can be manifest and unmanifest. Great Spirit is manifest and unmanifest and is beyond, is here, there everywhere.
Compare that with jeebusjehovallah (for the moment, assume he exists): his character is very gendered - absolutely gendered. Until recent times his location was fixed as the sky ("heaven, de hemel, himmel") until people actually went up into the sky and space and found that even there he didn't exist. In christoislamism, his character is not allowed to be visible: the most faithful christian <i>cannot</i> see him in this life (this is as per christian theology which is unrelenting on this point; and there are many priestly theological refutations of what is meant by seeing "as a child" - or whatever the biblical phrase was, and how it <i>does not</i> mean seeing god).
Jeebusjehovallah is one, exactly one. Never more. Complicated christian "maths" is used to show that their holy ghost, jesus and jehovallah are still monotheistically one... Actually, that depends on the christian sect and century. In the early centuries, the innumerable inimical christian sects argued on the True Nature of jeebus (most of them killed each other until mostly one kind remains today): see http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/nestorian.html It's <b>hysterical</b>.
But after all that they will declare that the Hindu is the one who is confused. No we're not. Because for us, 1 to Infinity have always all represented the same thing: our Divinity, viewed as our Bhagavan and/or Devi and/or Ishvara and/or Umachi and/or ... who exist(s) everywhere.