Removing The Sheen From Buddhism

[Husky]

And finally ,do you see your gods(not in dream) ?

Obviously not. Where did I say I did.

But there are still traditional Hindus in Bharatam who do.

So it will be good to share your views about afterlife and the spiritual world .

Why the anthropology? I didn't know I had sold my brain - or whatever - to science, where's the money?

Philosophy mean love of wisdom ,if it was something like philolimposophia :love for the Olympian(gods)wisdom you may have a case.Vedanta cant be applied to anything else.Vedanta mean the end(conclusion) of Vedas.We have something very specific here.

You overlook the literal way in which I implied its misuse:

"Veda literally means knowledge. Vedaanta means end of knowledge. Conclusion: Vedanta is universal. <insert random religion here, like the genocidal one known for appropriating and inculturation> is Vedaanta." (No it's NOT.)

To Hindus, it stands uncontested that the Vedam is Knowledge. And it refers to that something particular: The Vedam.

But you never know what English may do. A "guru" is now any kind of expert teacher and a pundit any kind of alleged expert, and an avatar ... etc.



Philosophia is Love For Wisdom, yes. But it is the Hellenes' name for something particular, not anything in general. That is, they weren't thinking of how the world would take it literally hence see it as universal, when they derived their word that seemed appropriate to them to refer to their ... Philosophy. It is *their* Wisdom they are referring to, and the energetic enthusiastic pursuit and practice of it (which could include rituals, such as in Theurgy).



But there's really no use arguing with me. Can read for yourself how the Hellenes considered it. (From memory, R. Smith in his work on Julian also indicates a few things on how Julian and others regarded this.)



It was IIRC Apollo who was - among other things - traditionally considered the God of Philosophy, who originated it, and brought it to man. (As an aside, I think I recall coming across how at times Wisdom was considered to be embodied - in a Goddess, Sophia. C.f. Athena presiding over Wisdom.)

i have some facts that you can check yourself .

[...]

but last year ,right on this forum, an old user(which seem to be shaiva) said that some shaiva could get angry on vaishnavas because of their believes.Thats sound like intolerance to me.

And which character was that? Link to the post, please. It can only be confirmed for "the intolerance that it sounds like", if you present it for scrutiny.

About 1000 years ago Ramanuja was exiled by the shaiva king because he was a vaishnava. I hope these are the exceptions and not the rule,

There are several instances of historical infighting, it is no revelation to Hindus. (There were also local-level skirmishes.) But at least one can happily say that the Acharya later returned from his exile after IIRC the tyrant who hounded him out got some disease and kicked the bucket (will need to confirm). The previous ruler and successor were normal Hindus, so yes, as anyone would know, it was "an exception and not the rule".



But why bring it up? I hope it's not to play the Injured Victim/Persecution Syndrome using some 6 degrees of separation via ISKCON. Because then I would win at this absurdly childish game: at least *I* have some actual Shri Vaishnava ancestry (an ancestor from several centuries back, the ancientry makes it relevant to the situ).

Even your hated iskonites believe this.

What's with the melodrama? (Your drastic uses of "despise", "hate", "before jumping on my head"... <- Uh, do people often jump on your head that you should anticipate such behaviour from a stranger?)



Your needling is unproductive. While there are things I find quite dangerous in ISKCON and which I disapprove of to varying degrees, nothing will come of discussing them. Whatever happens, happens.



As for your presenting ISKCON's view on Shiva, it is not complete. The full opinion (as also on Uma, Saraswati etc) can be found in the founder's "BG As It Is", for instance. Okay fine, examples. See his commentary ("purport" section) to "text 21" (I think they mean shloka 21) of chapter 7, his commentary to chapter 10 "text 42", etc.

I wonder that Hindus are not more wary about their blind endorsements.

And i dont have your bias against learning from books.

Again, why do you attribute such nonsense to me? Where did I say I have some universal problem with learning from books?

I said that the foreign dabblers in Taoism learnt what they thought they knew of the religion from books and overseas organisations. I have seen what is in books on "Hinduism" and even some books on "Taoism". Everyone *ought* to be biased against such literature and the half-baked conclusions it creates.

But in another sense, I do think that many important aspects of the old religions are not written down (Taoism, and Shinto especially), so in that sense too, learning from books in such cases must needs be incomplete.

You can find in the books things that are not readily visible even for a old practitioner.An only from books you know the hindu practices that are distant from your native region.

Lay Hindus don't need to study the traditional life of other Hindus, as they follow their own ancestral tradition: they *live* the religion passed down to them - that is the whole point. They're not tourists to go observing other Hindus and then come back and practice something that is not theirs. They don't dabble.

What they will do instead, is get initiation into certain practices important to them - which may or may not be local/known locally - which is not the same as reading books on "Hinduism".

Dont tell me that you know what happens in Bengal or Himachal .You know mostly about immediate region ,the rest you know from tv or temporary visits.

I don't feel guilty not knowing the details of Bengali or Himachal Hindus' traditional lives. It is enough for me to know they practice their ancient ancestral Hindu religious tradition, just as Tamizh Hindus, say, follow their own.

So your point is...?

You didnt read my texts were i laugh at the so call pure advaitins and i have debates whit some of this so call shankarians and they dont believe that Shankara was a gods worshiper,that he say :worship Govinda,or they believe that he did it only symbolically.

(Shankara variously declared that well-known Hindu Gods X, Y, Z, A etc. were the Ultimate - *one* of whom was Mahavishnu/Govinda.)



"Laughing"? Again, why do you nouveau converts feel you have the right to behave so to Hindus. Let them be. People will believe what they can and want to believe. The problem comes when those-Hindus-who-are-not-traditional-Advaitins (not ancestrally so) go about peddling their modern opinions on the internet, as if they are some grand authority on upanishadic "aham brahmaasmi" having "discovered" Shankara. There are some places on the web where ... oh it doesn't matter.



The danger that such modern Hindus simply don't see in their eagerness to Hey Let's Vedanta, is one that is quite insidious.

Anyway, Shankara, like Plato, was not "just" a "monistic philosopher". While Plato - in IIRC Julian's words (<- how handy he is, what would I do without him) - 'worshipped images', Shankara was a... a Poly-Idolator, and praised multiple Gods, with lots of Liebe to boot. I do not suspect Shankara of insincerity.





Will continue some other day.