Who Is A Hindu

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<b>Ashok Kumar</b>,
Before making your more complete response, may I suggest that you re-consider the points I was trying to make earlier.

1) That you are making associations under very material assumptions, i.e. assumptios of rigid Time-bondage, etc. Please try to think more about this. All your theories involve Time-dependent event series. Try thinking outside this box for a moment.

2) Make a note that the Vedas are quite explicit that there are many different kinds of "liberation". Liberation means "liberation from the Time-bound material universe". "Truth" (sat) is defined as "eternal", and Untruth (asat, mithya) is defined as "transience". Therefore, as I've pointed out so many times in the last 2 posts, Time-bondage is the crucial factor here. Now all types of "liberation" are "eternal" in the sense that the Soul breaks free from Time-bondage, and free from all those constructs that depend on past-future for their existence (such as False Ego).

Yet, the Vedic literature is full of ordinal comparisons between the different types of "liberation". <b>The significant point here is that there are virtually limitless possibilities in Universe, and it is at all times our spiritual aspirations that directly determine our destiny. Moreover, Universe is non-linear and cyclical in its workings, and what superficially might seem to be a development along a predetermined line, is in fact part of a much larger cycle that is invisible for our daily senses by virtue of its nonthinkable enormousness. Cyclic development, operative in a multitudinous array of Universes, is characterized by a limitless possibility of creation and manifestation. Thus, there is no line of development that is separated from or uninfluenced by our spiritual aims. It is of paramount importance to realize that it is up to us to create our destiny. It is our Spirit that is the continuous Creator of our Path. This is our Marginal Free Will. And, as the Vedic literature clearly describes various paths, various loci of spiritual development, it means that each jiva has its own Marginal Free Will. Please take the magnificence of this fact into account. And note that "will" corresponds to Soul, not False Ego.</b>

False Ego CANNOT be the unit of conscious experience, by definition. False ego is more likened to a STATE of illusion, rather than as an ENTITY. It is the false shadow of a REAL entity, and that real entity is the individual, infinitesimal Soul (which is the true, pure ego -- i.e. point of identity).

Did you note another semantic qualification here? Vaishnavism defines "ahamkara" as False Ego, not simply "ego". Why? Because that's how its defined in various places in shastra. <i>Janasya moho 'yam <b>aham mameti</b></i>. This idea of "aham mameti", i.e. "I and mine", i.e., selfish possessiveness, considering oneself to be the real Center, the ultimate enjoyer...this false notion is maya and ahamkara. The true position is that Godhead is the Ocean towards Whom all consciousness must flow. Therefore, "ahamkara" is False Ego, because there is an identity (jiva) that still exists <b>beyond maya </b>and material universe. But the mayavadis equate identity with jiva itself, which is not consistent with Vedanta.

Therefore, in explaining why the Bhagavata-dharma is the "most mature" fruit of the Veda, the following needs to be taken into account -- that there is no desire for denial or annihilation of any aspect of Eternal Existence by us jivas. There is no frustrated throwing-off, but rather, a complete and harmonous dovetailing of all aspects of Existence, in the mode of the deepest, cosmic Love imaginable.

3) Also, be aware that Vaishnavism often refers to the Supersoul as the "soul of all souls", in describing the relationship. But the individual soul is still differentiated from False Ego. You may want to investigate why they do that. Again, re-examine point (1) and (2).

It is the deepest observer in all of us. It is our deepest self and it is identical with the self of all.

Not "identical", but "united with". Please investigate the concept of sutraatman, etc.

The 'soul' or jiva is perhaps the deepest kosha in us.

No question of "perhaps" this or "perhaps" that. You cannot brush aside concepts by saying "perhaps this is just another something, after all". No. Tell me where it says that the Soul is another material kosha. A "kosha" is, by convention, material, i.e., made from the subtle elements from prakriti and pradhAna.

<b>sunder</b>,
In reply to a few comments you made:

But where does one begin, and how is it defined by those who know it? As those who have seen it or attained would not have "returned" to speak about it.

There's a Vedic concept called avatara, and also shaastra.

To me, the word Vaikunta brings an image of an Ocean of milk...

Please convey my regards to your grandmother. However, the "Vaikuntha sky" is an esoteric concept quite far above fantastic bed-time stories. In the Srimad Bhagavatam, and also in the Bhakti sutras, it is said that the Bhagavatam can truly be relished only by paramahamsas. But conditioned humans are advised to study it regularly <i>with a submissive and open-minded attitude (shraddha)</i>, in order to be purified. Kids who have their minds made up may flip through, but apart from some "timepass", there would be no benefit.

You also seem to agree that the Self is not annihilated and the 'impression' is an illusion. The question is, to WHOM is this illusion occuring, and why?

Re-read my last post. The infinitesimal Soul is under this illusory potency. The question "why", however, is a really deep question. At this point all I'll say is that it was by the agency of the Soul's own Marginal Free Will, and the Supreme Soul's loving reciprocation.

The mind makes a hell or heaven of anything.

The bhagavan-realized Souls are not conditioned living entities. When they make a rhetorical statement like "sAyujya is as palatable as Hell", they do it to instruct conditioned living entities, in an attempt to influence us towards <b>the most mature locus of spiritual development. We jivas are like sparks flying out of a spiritual furnace. But we have marginal free will. We can choose to extinguish ourselves, or to fall on inflammable substance and extend the blaze.</b>

Interested readers may also want to investigate the concepts of the paths of "karaamaat" versus the paths of "ikraam" in Islamic mysticism. But please do so from bona fide sources (like Said Bediuzzaman Nursi).

Even if the jeevabhoothas are infinitesimal part of the whole, still they are different only in size, and not in kind.

Quite right, although I wouldn't start talking about "size" in this context. What it means is that we are one with the supreme in terms of Quality, but infinitely lesser in terms of Power. We have only Marginal Free Will, but no agency independent of the Supreme.

When Bhagavaan was speaking to Arjuna, the state of mind of Arjuna is to be taken into account. When in the second chapter the Lord says, "Sarve Vayam athah param", the vayam (we all) is not the Absolute sense, but in relative sense of the bodies.

Achha, even though the same assertion of eternal individuality is made over and oer again in the Gita, and in other sciptures? You know, there's an anecdote about oversmart interpreters. A lady asks her husband to go buy chicken. So in the market he hears the chicken hawkers saying "Buy my chicken. My chicken is the fattest!" So he thinks that fat must be the REAL "essence" of chicken. Why not go to the fat market? At the fat market, the hawkers are saying, "Buy my fat, its as smooth as oil!" So our hero now thinks that oil must be the essence of fat. So he goes to the oil market. Over there, the hawkers are saying, "Buy my oil. Its as clear as water!". So the man finally goes back home with a bucket of water, which his wife pours over his head. <b>This is the position of oversmart mayavadi interpreters.</b>

"Athava bahunaitena kim gnaatena tavarjuna? vistabyaham idam krtsnam ekamsena sthito jagat." -- this could then be interpreted as even Vaasudeva who is part of the Vibhoothi list, is an Amsha of Bhagavaan...

"With a single fragment of Myself I pervade and support this entire universe." Who exactly Vaasudeva is is quite another matter. Nowhere in this verse does it mention Vaasudeva as being an amsha. Vaasudeva and the innumerable other <i>expansions</i> of Godhead are another matter altogether, and a fascinating study no doubt. As I mentioned, there is jiva-shakti, but there is also chit-shakti, and much more.

If Poornaad poornam udachyathe is said to be true, what is causing the difference between the Sarvagna (Omniscient), and the Kinchidgna (Limited knower)?

Already touched upon this in the last post. The infinitesimal is liable to come under any illusory potency of the Supreme Infinite. The potency of the Supreme is causing the infinitesimal particle to feel "independent".

How does the Kinchidgna get to know the Omniscient? Is it with "consciousness" that's different in nature from the "Omniscient"'s or is the nature of Consciousness the same in "both" the Infinite and the finite? If they are different, then "Buddhim Buddhimathaam asmi" would need clarification.

Before we can speculate about pure consciousness, can you explain why you so casually link that to buddhi, which is one of the material elements?

Jeeva is like the reflection of Brahman and not a quality of the same.

Now you're going to have to explain this one, with support from scripture. I bet that the best you can do is appeal to atheistic Sankhya semantics, which even refer to atman as "mind". (However, there is a deeper, theistic explanation of this "reflection" idea also, but that it clearly not what you have in mind).

How can there be TWO Kshetragnas?

Ask Krishna. But He clearly says so. At first He says there is this ksetrajna that is the conscious knower of the individual body-fields. And then He says there is the other ksetrajna, which is the knower of ALL body-fields. There are 2 different descriptions in the space of a few verses. Now if you want to weave a story about "Arjuna's mental immaturity" to explain Krishna's words in scripture as redundant loose-talk, than its your prerogative. But as far as we know, Arjuna was no desert Bedou. He had a pretty sophisticated Vedic education. And scripture (including the BG) is not full of meaningless chatter. If it were, then venerable teachers like Shankara wouldn't give so much importance to them. Meaningless chatter appears to those who read scripture with the wrong lens.

There is no such claim that the Immutable is self-hypnotic in it's Original sense. Au contraire, there is reference that this self-hypnotism, forgetfulness, memory, sleep, dream, waking, etc are witnessed by the Self - i.e. is made possible by the Self which is untainted by all these.

<b>I congratulate you for having concisely stated a common mayavadi contradiction here, with the concomitant word-jugglery. I am aware that in certain mistranslations (negligent of semantic precision), the word "Self" is used for any occurence of the words Atman and Paramatman.</b> My old friend "gangajal"'s posts from the Upanishads on this thread are riddled with such semantically delinquent English translations.

Now you say that there is a hypnosis, illusion, etc that is being witnessed by a certain Self. What is being hypnotized here? What is under illusion? I can show you certain so-called Advaita texts that say it is "self-hypnosis". And in my previous post I have touched upon how "vivarta" and "parinama/vikaara" are misdefined and mis-applied by so-called Advaitins.

Is the merging of the waterdrops in the river with the ocean real merging, or is it being close to the Ocean? It is uniform merging, correct? Likewise, the jeevas which are propogated at the beginning of a cycle, go back into their causal state at the end of the cycle.

sunder, this is a very useful comment, and I mean it. Please scroll up and refer to the comments I made to Ashok Kumar. Now, the "jivaatman" is clearly an infinitesimal entity, but Vaishnavism also refers to paramatman as the Soul of all souls, and in fact the Pith of all Existence. By existence we mean Eternal (True) Existence, not Material Existence. So the eternal, spiritual existence of what may be compared to "spiritual attributes" is also a fact (refer my comments on Sri Ramanuja's metaphors, etc). Now I'm a little shaky on this, but from my limited study of the subject, the jivatman is one such fragmental spiritual attribute in relation to the Supreme Soul. Move on to the point I made about the locus of spiritual evolution. Now you may <b>choose</b> to "be" the water (or "be" under the impression that you are the water), or you may choose to be the river, which constantly reciprocates with the Ocean. In the former case, you choose to extinguish, or refuse and deny, the eternal spiritual existence of the multipotencies, of variegated opulence. It is a stunted "conclusion" to the opportunity for spiritual evolution. Of course, the fact is that even this "choice" is also from your Marginal Free Will, and actually has no agency of its own, except the Causeless reciprocation of the Supreme Will. I'll leave it at this for now.

All of the above statements fall into place if the statement Brahman ALONE is True is accepted. (Brahma eva Satyam.)

I repeat: "Satyam" corresponds with eternality. Now in that eternal existence, vivarta and vikaara operate. <b>Vivarta and vikaara (parinama) are not to be thrown away when we're not talking of the present material mithya existence. Therefore, the eternal existence of spiritual variegatedness is entirely consistent with Vedanta. The denial of this is inconsistent with Vedanta, because it involves only a selective mis-application of several concepts, which are nowhere confined to those selective contexts.</b>

Did Ramanuja accept Shankaracharya as a true interpreter and upholder of Vedic Dharma? Was he indebted (as you mention loyalty) to Shankaracharya's teachings? I would be thrilled if he did.

I bring you glad tidings. Yes, Ramanuja and all of us are indebted to Shankaracharya for re-establishing the authority of the Vedas. And we all accept shankara's exposition of the existence of Brahman as being satyam, but this is only one blindsided view of Ultimate Reality, and the succceeding acharyas widened that circle of light. And eat this -- Ramanuja had to plead on this very point (the authority of Vedic scripture) with the mayavadis (who claim a copyright on Shankara)! <b>In their debates, Ramanuja was appealing to Vedic authority, while mayavadis were hedging, and wanted to stick ONLY to Shankara's commentaries, which, as I indicated, were partial expositions of Vedanta based on the receptiveness of the public in the times and place in which he lived. While Ramanuja was referring directly to Vedanta scripture, the mayavadis would not listen, annd insisted only on sticking to arguing the often ambiguous semantics of Shankara, rather than Vedanta itself. According to the mayavadis, if a conflict arose, then Vedantic terms were to be re-defined to make more sense of shankara's phrases, rather than the other way around! They didn't want to step out of their Advaita well, and that is still their position today.</b>

Vaishnavism (by that I hope you mean Pancharatra/Bhagavata school.) is quite rich in emotion based worship...

Ah, the cigar-smoking, sangfroid of the exalted intelechooul. Mayavadis, not having any substantial argument, resort to underhand insinuations that Vaishnavism is for "emotional" types, whereas kevala-advaita is for "intellectual" giants onlee. Innocent laymen may be awed by these statements and impressed by some ridiculous word-jugglery. <b>But I am still waiting for you to produce ONE historical example of a kevala-advaita scholar defeating a Vaishnava scholar in one of those famous public debates that are milestones in Hindu religious history. Just ONE, please. We can provide you with a dozen historical examples of Vaishnava acharyas, and even their good students, conclusively defeating mayavadi gurus (many of whom had royal patronage) in public debate (All of these Advaitins were noble enough to humbly accept defeat).</b> Please provide an example of the opposite, and a famous, well-documented one that had significant impact. Not some street-corner tiff between caste-brahmins in Kumbhakonam.