Dear Lakṣmī
The same Kṛṣṇa is Vāsudeva for the purpose of Dharma and takes so many forms as Dharma requires forms and philosophy …and that same Kṛṣṇa is our Jagannāth when it comes to the formless-form for spirituality. Yet we attribute all sorts of ceremonies to Him that we would do for Vāsudeva Kṛṣṇa.
A very fundamental difference between Religion and Spirituality is
Religion is unchangeable and has laws, rights and wrongs defined and requires complete and absolute obedience of these laws whereas Spirituality is changeable and change/transformation is a necessary prerequisite for spiritual growth. There are no hard laws for spirituality. It has the 12th bhāva of surrender as its goal. But Dharma has the 9th bhāva of obedience as its goal.
Dharma starts with self and ends with self-perfection and self-realisation à Spirituality starts with vidyā and ends with self-dissolution
In Dharma the self continues to exist à In spirituality the self, ceases to exist
The discussion was about god and that is why I purposely asked Ramapriya whether he believed that 'the creator' was the god.
From where does the thought of God come? It is based on Creation, Sustenance and Dissolution. The highest philosophies of religion have come from the thought of 'life after death'. Where do we go after we die? And it is this insecurity that causes the mind to listen to and adhere to concepts of 'house of god'. Why should god have one house? Is He so limited by space and time? If not then He must be everywhere and every place is His abode. That is the concept of Jagannāth. The real problem is in "ME". That 'ME" wants to go to the house of god and for that we must have a house of god. That is the weakness of "ME". If "ME" ceases to exist ten where ever He is that is where the ME shall be. Accept the truth – that is beyond human comprehension as human beings cannot fathom the boundaries of the universe. Then that HE or GOD must be sarva-vyapaka i.e. omnipresent. Then alone is HE god, else it is another figment of man's mind.
…in this manner we arrive at various concepts for defining god based on the depth of our thoughts.
Even from a layman's perspective
God is Creator concept: Why did he create us? To have sadistic pleasure in our punishment for deviation?? And when did I deviate – why is it that I am being punished for sins of someone else … some chap called Adam ate an apple and now I have to pay for it. That's unfair as it puts the concept of 'eternal debt' into our mind thereby enslaving us to keep 'paying for that debt'. It's a good business idea as it ensures eternal payments from all children of Adam.
Another way of looking at this is 'he is our father' … my question – why not mother? And also Is god a male figure whose only job is to produce kids. Frankly, I have debated the Creator God concept for a long time and everytime I come back to these same questions. Creator God is very good concept for the masses, the sheep who need to be told that they are sinners and that they lied and so on and so forth. Any man with reasonable intelligence will reject this outright.
God is Sustainer: That's a better concept as it shows a friendly god who is caring, feeding and doing all those things we need to live our lives as good human beings.
God is Destroyer: Terrible concept as then He is the one responsible for all our suffering. Thats the concept behind Yama and we also have a Rudra concept who cries when we cry …at least some divine form to feel our suffering and pain. Someone strong to avenge the wrongs done to us. That's Hanuman who came to avenge the wrong done to Rama. I like that. What about you?
God is Knowledge: That's the concept of Shiva - the real God must be above all these petty things and is nothing but pure knowledge.
OK I am ending here, but that's how I think. With all thse concepts comes jyotiṣa. the fitting of all this inside jyotiṣa paradigm
Namaste Lakshmi, Keep smiling and say Jay Jagannāth
Sanjay Rath
Dear Sanjay, Visti, Maja, et al,
Not to confuse a doctrine or philosophy with spiritual realization.
Dharma trines 9, 5, 1. Religion and religious practices.
Moksha trikonas 12, 8, 4 Moving on to a deeper level the spirit level
Religion is different than spirituality, and realization. Religion is rules , regulations, and Godly knowledge.
8th house is understanding the concept of "spirit" and our relationship with the supreme Spirit, or knowledge of ether. Ability to go beyond the level of gross physical
Someone can be self realized in relationship to God with out being 'religious' or in being attached to one religion or another.
Your comments are welcome, and Sanjay especially , you have a way with words and concepts.
