Hindu Gods and Goddesses

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Dichotomies and Dualisms: Gold in the Darkness

Dichotomies and dualisms, though never ultimately true, do provide means to exercise ranges of sense vibration perhaps otherwise inaccessible to the collective consciousness in this dark age.  Constructs such as "the Devil" allow for a certain binary play of opposition, as well as the ironic and oft playful use of such tropes to elevate the discourse above dualistic violences. 

It is indeed of note that the nature of this age, when people are generally most unaware of the truly non-dual nature of reality, allows certain transcendent leaps unavailable in those ages when the potential potency of (albeit illusory) dichotomies (think of the power of opposite charges in magnetism and electricity) cannot be accessed by the functioning of the already fully Self-aware conscious mind.  If one doesn't (albeit mistakenly) believe in "other" or "Other," the play of relationship between self/Self and not-self/-Self loses some potency and poignancy.  If you don't believe in the bad guy, you can't play games of good guy vs. bad guy.  Not to say that ignorance of the non-dual nature of reality is better that true Self-awareness.  Rather, as people play with a dualistic framework imagined, certain possible constructs become available for the play and array of life lived rather differently than for the truly Self-aware mind. 

In truth, awareness that behind all illusions maya may proffer, indeed all is brahman/God/good is a better, more peaceful and fruitful mode of being than the ill prospects of dualism.  Regardless, to function within the functionally dualistic constructs of culture and society in this dark age, the Kali yuga, the potency of "opposite charges" ought be considered and sometimes employed as potential if illusory means and power, if without any real attachment to that game of seeming opposition and potently/functionally imagined and constructed dualisms.


In the Ayurvedic understanding of time and ages of humanity, within the Kali Yuga, a period of 432,000 years or so, there is a Gauri Yuga or "Golden Age" touted to last 10,000 years.  That within the darkness there is a bright and beautiful light is directly analogous to Gauri Ma emerging from Kali Ma.  Kali Ma and Durga Ma are the same being, yet Dark Goddess Kali Ma does of certainty present a terrible figure, whereas Gauri presents a brighter and in some guises more pleasant Person.  There is no difference in truth between them, though the play of dichotomy even there does allow potencies unavailable to the non-differentiated form.  Thus the bliss of the Gauri Yuga, in relation to the supposed terrible state of the encompassing Kali Yuga, is granted more potency in the play of mind and experiencing than were that fictional separation not extant.  Dualism is illusion, though can offer means of play that allow for excitement and cycles of play can't be played if difference is not.



Monday, January 19, 2015

Is God already here, or does He/She require an Invite?

I have already writ posts that tell amply my opinion that sanAtana dharma/Hinduism is the original religion practiced by the purported patriarch of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  Abraham was named after Brahma, the Creator according to sanAtana dharma, Sarah and Haggar named after Saraswati and Ghaggar (a river tributary to the Saraswati River in India).  According to the Torah Abraham and crew came from Ur of the Chaldese, which has been determined to have been rather near the Indus Valley.  Judaism, Christianity and Islam are certainly somehow related to the Hindu Trimurti Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, in that order.  As with Buddhism, thus, the Abrahamic religions have root in sanAtana dharma, and as with Buddhism those sought, at root, to respond to the pre-existent concepts of brahman and Atman, the Universal Divine Consciousness and the Divine seeded within each soul and being.

In separating geographically and otherwise from the homeland of their religion and entering new lands, the Abrahamic religions seem to have found need or want to differentiate, though not willing to let go the notion of One Divine, which is what is noted by the term brahman, nonetheless each posit "God" as something other than brahman, which might be denoted by the A as prefix in Abraham, i.e., "not brahman."

Buddhism, as they deal so with the issue of suffering, decided to let go the "All-Powerful God" factor in the question of theodicy, overtly stating, Abrahman and unatma, no Universal God and no Divine already extant in each and as every souls' true Self.
Christianity tries to replace the supposed lack of atman (that they seem like the Buddhists to believe despite the Christians continued belief in a Universal Divine Self) with their "Holy Spirit."  I.e., "If not what we/our forbearers once knew as "God" then what?  If there is no seed of the Universal Divine already in us, then with what do we fill that hole?"
The Buddhist answer, "Nothing."  The Hebrew answer, "Sacrifices." The Christian answer, "Fill that empty space with the self-sacrificing God we killed."  The Muslim answer, "Just surrender."

The answer of sanAtana dharma: God as we have and do know Him/Her does exist and is already the root and core to every being.  Indeed suffering does exist, but is properly extant to guide or goad us towards action and practice that are blissful yoga (yoke) with the True Self, i.e., suffering is dharma.  Suffering can also exist when the vibrations of material reality and experiencing are ill-tuned, as maya  (this illusory reality we call reality) is a fine tuned instrument designed for the enjoyment of experiencing, designed to give something to do with eternity.


Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, first three verses: 

Herein is Yoga
Yoga is the alteration of sense vibration
that therein Pure Consciousness might abide . . .