Jagat

This is an old article from way back published on the now defunct VNN site. I came across it as I was doing some research on compassion. There was no copy on the blog so I decided to repost it. It will be somewhat interesting to see the difference of style and content. One thing that springs quickly to anyone who reads my other stuff on this blog, is that I am directly addressing some hypothetical Iskcon audience. Anyway, check out the current article when I put it up. The link is dead. EDITORIAL, Apr 25 (VNN) — In his article ( Practical Standard of Goodness ), Akhilesvara Prabhu recognizes the role that the Golden Rule has played in Western moral philosophy and asks the question whether we can find an alternative to it as the basis of morality. This is a significant question, and though it may seem self evident that we accept the idea of treating our neighbor as we would be treated ourselves, it is worth investigating. The American transcendentalist Josiah Royce identified thi...

Without situations there are no stories. Without stories there is no rasa . Therefore, the existence of evil in the world is only to create situations. With no obstacles to overcome, love is unrealizable in its scope. Someone may object: What about horrendous evil? Evil is not being condoned. Simply it is being said that the greater the evil, the greater the p otential for heroism. And love shines all the brighter in the darkness. This of course requires accepting the world-view of the Bhagavad Gita which says that there is no true death, no true suffering. We are engaged in a play in which the only reality or value is Rasa. raso vai sah . This of course includes the karma doctrine, which means that everyone answers for their evil. But the law of karma does not answer ultimate questions about evil, for it too faces the problem of infinite regression. There is a hierarchy of rasas, which are arranged in order from horror ( bibhatsa ), fear ( bhayanaka ), a...

This is a combination of four articles that were posted on Gaudiya Discussions from April 10, 2004. Since I am engaged in a bit of reminiscence, this fits in right about here. I. Ritual and Structure: The meaningful organization of symbols One thing I learned about in the phenomenology of religion course during my university days was to look for structures in religious rituals. As I have stated many times, religious symbols are inexhaustible sources of meaning. They should contain all the elements of a dialectic within them, so that each completion of the dialectic circle results in a deepening of perception of one's ultimate religious concern. A great religion generally has a little something for everybody--a saint, a demigod, a little myth or legend, a theological interpretation. These all expand out of the great central constellation of myths. A religion's rituals generally recapitulate these myths communally, so that they are reinforced by their performance. T...

The point of much of what was said before is this: The I-Thou mode of relation is more natural to woman, the I-It mode to men. Even this very discourse is contaminated by the masculine approach as I try to dissect these matters and analyse them without apparently directly engaging in an I-Thou act. In fact, Buber himself says that the I-Thou mode assimilates the I-It mode in the way that relation assimilates experience . "There is nothing I must not see in order to see, and there is no knowledge that I must forget. Rather, it is everything, picture and movement, species and instance, law and number, included and inseparably fused." Therefore, my dear reader, when I speak these things, they are all assimilated into You. The acharyas confirm this insight in relation to the bhakti path as well. Jiva Goswami writes that knowledge need not be inimical to devotion (see Durgama-saṅgamanī to BRS 1.1.10). The early scientists thought of natural reason as a way of understanding t...

It's a little ironic to be talking about the 20th century Hassidic Jewish philosopher Martin ( Mordechai ) Buber in the context of current events in Lebanon. It seems that there is something of a reaction to these events in a slow but steady rise of anti-Jewish feeling, as evidenced by Australian actor Mel Gibson's drunken tirade, which was of course followed by the expected ritual self-flagellation (https://forward.com/culture/449521/mel-gibson-anti-semitism-timeline-winona-ryder/) that only confirmed to conspiracy theorists the absolute domination of Jews in the world of American film and media. Jewish contributions to civilization are so great and disproportionate to their numbers that I never cease to be amazed by them. One of those is this mystic insight of Buber into the essence of theism, which after all is Judaism's soul and its first and proudest contribution to human civilization. Yet it, of all things, has somehow gone missing in this action. Militarization is ...

I have been talking about the relation of man to woman and their appropriateness for bhakti-sādhana . In my last article on this subject, I concluded that the encounter of the sādhaka or sādhikā is a manifestation of Guru Tattva which, I have attempted to explain, is the incursion of the divine Other on the closed or solipsistic consciousness. Something of what has been said in the previous sections can be further elucidated by a reference to Martin Buber’s concept of “I-Thou” (sometimes called "dialogical") mysticism, which was very influential in liberal Protestant circles, especially in the America of the 50's and 60's. Like many of the Western thinkers to whom I refer, he is somewhat out of date, at least he is no longer the fad he once was. Nevertheless, I am unapologetic about referring to his extremely perceptive summary of human consciousness, which I feel gives insight into the bhakti path and is helpful in understanding its implications. Buber's ba...