Hinduism, Initial concept of Shiva, Trinity...

[SoftSword]

Sunilji, there is no issue in trying to understand the meaning of a prayer before praying. But its incorrect to say that there is *no* use whatsoever in trying to pray without knowing its meaning.

For example, when we were children, we were taught many little rhymes to memorise and sing. From an adults perspective, the child has no understanding of these rhymes, their meaning is trivial, and therefore it is useless. Yet, it can definitely be said that these rhymes help the child to comprehend and reproduce sounds, to get some hold on the form and structure of language, and does indeed contribute in a small way to the child's development. Similarly, during school, we were taught so many subjects which are not relevant to our life today. Yet studying each of these subjects was not useless, simply because they helped us to understand how to go about studying itself (besides the obvious GK, increase in memory capacity,etc).


Of course, the analogies above only to illustrate a point that there are several things in our life which are useful even before we understand their meaning. In the same way, the prayers, even without understanding the meaning, reap fruit if they are chanted with faith and humility. The fruits of prayer will be more if they are told keeping the meaning in mind, but they are not useless even otherwise. Of course, really speaking this statement about prayer has to be taken on faith only.

do u mean to say if faith is the foremost and if that is there, it doesn matter what you are chanting?
in that case cant just faith be enuf, why do u need a chant at all?

correct me if i am wrong.

[Sunil_M88]

Folks

Let’s apply some logics here, where does this idea of "GOD" come in your mind? You come out of your mother’s womb and awestruck by all the creation around you, so by applying a bit of logic and you come to a conclusion that in order for the creations to exist, there must be a creator / GOD. This concept exists within your mind!

This concept does not exist for you when you are asleep, unconscious or in a coma. But you are still alive right, how ? It is that divine cosmic energy is still residing within you! This is why you should turn inwards to seek spirituality. But Majority of people seek the Creator outside using the 5 sensory organs, these organs are meant for survival and are capable detecting the physical elements only. GOD/CREATOR/COSMIC ENERGY is not physical, hence can not be understood by sensory organs!

Pardon my ignorance. To any Buddhists or anyone who has an understanding about this religion - From my gathering the most common definition of religion is to believe in the supernatural and in Buddhism, the idea of God is non existent. However, it is mentioned Buddhists or any one for that matter can reach enlightenment via deep ascetic penchants by cutting off all materialistic desires. Can't this divine power enabling us to reach enlightenment be considered as God. Hence, can it be questioned that the idea of God in Buddhism is that "God is within each of us".

Coming back to Anbu sir's post

First I must ask you here. What you do think "God" is anyway? Is it a person or something else? Without defining it, it might not be accurate to say that "God is beyond our body" or "God is within each of us".

Just want to iterate what Paramashivan said - When we're children, we ideally think that God or Creator is beyond our body... e.g. During Ramayan it is known that Lord Rama worshiped Lord Shiva as well performing aartis for navaratri and in turn Lord Hanuman (Incarnation of Rudra) worshiped Lord Rama. So we see Gods worshiping gods in Hinduism.

My question - Hindu's suggest that Buddha is an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, but Buddhists don't really abide by this and coming to the notion that as kids we see God (creator being a better word) beyond our body then surely Buddha (Siddartha Gautama) must have some where down the line considered God being beyond his body?

Again pardon my ignorance and hope I made sense. Sorry if I offended anyones sentiments.

[anbu_kathir]

do u mean to say if faith is the foremost and if that is there, it doesn matter what you are chanting?
in that case cant just faith be enuf, why do u need a chant at all?

correct me if i am wrong.

Since this question has little meaning beyond religion, I am going to assume the tenets of Hinduism before answering the question.

Every individual when he or she prays asks essentially for removal of some situation that causes suffering and sustenance of comfortable/happy situations. All prayer is for these two only. Faith means having firm belief that God is perfectly capable of helping us move through our difficult situations and restoring/sustaining the happy situations in our lives. Without this firm belief, our prayers will only be a lie, and therefore will not bear fruit.

Now to the issue of the activity itself, which involves doing something or the other to demonstrate this faith (it might be chanting, or going to temple, or lighting a lamp.. anything at all). This activity is required to ensure the commitment of the individual to his faith. "Faith" by itself has no meaning to it if it does not drive activity. Such a faith is dormant and amounts to nothing, for in the world, it is only the activities that matter.

Furthermore, in the initial stages, such faith-related activity should not be yet another worldly activity, which involves our daily routine of acquiring survival and comforts. This is important because our minds are already trained to think only of our worldly concerns and worries during these activities, and it will be near impossible to use these activities as "prayer". Thus, a dedicated non-worldly activity is required to help concentrate the mind on the divine, not distracting it with the concerns of the world.

Such activity is also necessary because the individual often loses sight of the fact that he or she only has the ability to do actions and does not have the capability of controlling which reactions have to come at what times, and with what intensity. The principle of Karma, which merely says that actions are rewarded justly, does not offer us any information about the time delays or the intensities with which the rewards come. Conjoining faith with a particular activity makes it a ritual, and in effect is also supposed to remind the individual that there are forces beyond his or her control, and prepare him psychologically to handle whatever experiences may turn up at his doorstep as a just result of his prior actions (known or unknown).

As to the particulars of the ritual itself, why one has to do it in one way or another, the only (secular) answer that comes to my mind is that there is a certain inherent potency it carries because it has been reinforced through generations of practice by the elders in the particular tradition, or other people close to the individual whose opinions and actions he or she might have come to respect. All these increase the faith that one has on the ritual, and enables it to take effect more powerfully within the mind of the individual.

Love and Light.

[anbu_kathir]

Pardon my ignorance. To any Buddhists or anyone who has an understanding about this religion - From my gathering the most common definition of religion is to believe in the supernatural and in Buddhism, the idea of God is non existent. However, it is mentioned Buddhists or any one for that matter can reach enlightenment via deep ascetic penchants by cutting off all materialistic desires. Can't this divine power enabling us to reach enlightenment be considered as God. Hence, can it be questioned that the idea of God in Buddhism is that "God is within each of us".

Buddhists do believe in Divinity and supernatural entities. They do have temples. Lets seek to understand one system from the basics at first. A jack of all trades is all trades is a master of none. With respect to religions and philosophies, its even worse; such a person will be a really confused person.

Love and Light.

[PARAMASHIVAN]

Sunil,

Our thoughts and emotions are just a psychological reality. The
psychological reality has nothing to do with the existential reality.

[anbu_kathir]

-deleted-

[anbu_kathir]

Folks

Let’s apply some logics here, where does this idea of "GOD" come in your mind? You come out of your mother’s womb and awestruck by all the creation around you, so by applying a bit of logic and you come to a conclusion that in order for the creations to exist, there must be a creator / GOD. This concept exists within your mind!

This concept does not exist for you when you are asleep, unconscious or in a coma. But you are still alive right, how ? It is that divine cosmic energy is still residing within you! This is why you should turn inwards to seek spirituality. But Majority of people seek the Creator outside using the 5 sensory organs, these organs are meant for survival and are capable detecting the physical elements only. GOD/CREATOR/COSMIC ENERGY is not physical, hence can not be understood by sensory organs!

Paramashivan,

What you say is right, but there is certainly nothing *wrong* in seeking God through the senses. Yes, most of us are in this stage only. In whatever stage we are in, there is always the opportunity to uphold Dharma in one's life and do so in the service of the Lord. The forms of the Lord that are seen all over the world are all nothing less *real* than human beings, because even by your own logic, the word "human being", "body", "mind" all these are *concepts in the mind* only. There is no source of knowledge as to why these concepts should be less or more real than the concept of God as a being with name(s) and form(s).

As long as there is the notion of attachment to the body, i.e., as long as we think we are the body-mind complex, or that we *have* a body-mind complex that is *ours*, it is best to seek the Lord through actions through the body, through words, and through the mind. It is certainly not wise to give up this pursuit saying that "God cannot be understood through physical organs", fact though it may be. The lives of so many saints of this world are testaments to this.

Love and Light.

[PARAMASHIVAN]

but there is certainly nothing *wrong* in seeking God through the senses

Senses can only perceive what is physical, since we all agree that the "Omnipotent" is not physical, then how? You see our thoughts/behaviours/attitude/emotions are nothing but an imitation from the environment / culture we are born in, and it varies from individual to individuals, hence there can never be a "general concept". Devotion is like any other human emotions, and it is never constant, it is just one of those feelings generated from your Adrenalin glands.

[anbu_kathir]

Senses can only perceive what is physical, since we all agree that the "Omnipotent" is not physical, then how? You see our thoughts/behaviours/attitude/emotions are nothing but an imitation from the environment / culture we are born in, and it varies from individual to individuals, hence there can never be a "general concept". Devotion is like any other human emotions, and it is never constant, it is just one of those feelings generated from your Adrenalin glands.

Bhakthi is not "just another emotion" which is generated from your adrenalin glands. This is not acceptable in the Hindu model. If you are talking science, all your "seek the Creator within" is also just another pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo which apparently sounds more interesting and philosophical. From a point of view of science, there is no such thing as a "creator", you are nothing but a mass of atoms which interact in a particular way so as to create the "I". Your "seeking" is also some neurons in the brain firing here and there. All we have is then some inert matter which came out of a big bang, and which by chance conjoined to produce this thing we call "life" with no known purpose. Certainly this viewpoint is not shared in Hinduism.

In Hinduism, God, in the most true meaning of the word, is indeed not perceptible to the senses. But this does not mean Bhakthi towards an external form is a waste. The Lord who is found in the temple is 100% real, as real as any other being in this universe. It is not for nothing that the greatest saints of India spent their time and energy worshiping the Lord in the way they saw/knew him, as Krishna, as Rama, as Shiva, as Murugan, as Abirami, as Saraswati, as Meenakshi, etc.

To say that all their efforts were useless is incorrect. You say Bhakthi is some emotion produced by adrenalin glands. Yet, why should it be more in some people and less in others? There is no real answer to this question if you consider only science (you only get infinite regress). According to Hinduism, the mind is prior to the human body. Though there is no denial of a mind-body connection, it is the particular characters or inherent impressions in the mind of the individual Jiva (which he accumulates through his actions over several lifetimes) that the particular body with its particular characteristics is available to him in this lifetime. So Bhakthi is not just some emotion "caused" by some physical activity. The physical organs which are involved in maintaining Bhakthi are merely intermediary causes for it. The same holds for any other emotions and thoughts. They are all the expressions of the characteristics accumulated by the Jiva over several lifetimes.

All of the different modes of Bhakthi present in Hinduism are relevant and necessary in any time and age. But the individual has to observe his own nature and tune himself to the particular mode of Bhakthi that is best for him. It is definitely impossible to discard any of the modes of worship and still call the system as Sanatana Dharma or the way of Eternal and Universal Dharma. In fact, it is not exactly correct to say "God is not physical". God is indeed *also* physical. But He is not *just* physical.

Love and Light.

[PARAMASHIVAN]

Kathir

I did not say Bakthi was a bad thing at all, all I said was in order for one to reach "Ultimate" you need a combination of bakthi(devotion) , Gnana (intellect) Kriya(Life energies) and Karma (actions) . By one of these accept alone it is virtually impossible to reach the Ultimate, (IMHO). Imagine all these were four wheels of a car, in order to reach the destination, you will need all these 4 wheels to work simultaneously right?

If one decides to go in a different direction, will you reach your destination? No right? This is what I meant