Jagat

I think this will be the last article I post from 1997. After reading one of the others, a friend on Facebook told me that this scientific mode of thinking has reached its limits and that mystical techniques including psychotropic substances open one's "doors of perception" in ways  that scientists have yet little hope of understanding, precisely because they are subjective experiences. I will have to return to this question later, but it does indeed form the crux of much of the thinking that I am just now in the process of crystallizing. It centers on the left-brain/right-brain type  duality  that it is imperative, our psychological and spiritual duty, that we learn to synthesize. Functional equilibrium is far from meaning genuine synthesis.  Different personality types will always lean to one or the other styles of thinking and experiencing reality. But my friend Mathura Das [for it is he!] is fundamentally right on the principle of bhakti . Bhakti is ultima...

Disconnect to reconnect. Radha and Krishna are my device. But there is a little recharging necessary. The recharge comes itself from the device, but it needs to be rebooted through realization, understanding, sadhana, deep penetration, application in other dimensions, etc. But the basic premise is the same. The thing about religion is that it is full of symbolic content that requires lengthy contemplation. These contents arise from the depths of the collective unconscious through the medium of the extraordinary spiritually aware individuals who plunged those depths. There is little way to prove the validity of their value objectively. Of course, the psychological, social, or even physical benefits of religion have been shown to some extent through various studies, but to the rational people who see the negative consequences of religious intolerance, etc., these do not hold much weight. The balance shifts to the negative side and the blame is given to irrationality. After al...

satya-vrataṁ satya-paraṁ tri-satyaṁ satyasya yoniṁ nihitaṁ ca satye satyasya satyam ṛta-satya-netraṁ satyātmakaṁ tvāṁ śaraṇaṁ prapannāḥ We take shelter of You, whose very essence is truth: You, who are true to your vow, who value the truth above all, who are the unchanging truth that pervades past, present and future. You are the womb of truth; You are hidden in all truth; You are the very Truth that makes all truth true. You are the eye of truth in the cosmic law. (BhP 10.2.26) First I would like to thank the organizers of the conference, in particular Jodh Singh and Paramvir Singh, and Jaspreet Kaur Sandhu, but everyone else also. It has been a most enjoyable and gratifying experience to be so warmly received as a guest here at Punjabi University, Patiala. Furthermore, I would like to thank all the speakers who shared their thoughts on this important topic. I will not be able to list them all for fear of putting some first and some later. Suffice it to say that I have bee...

Following on from this post and its comments . These are mostly disorganized notes. Writing in the 1950's, French Catholic theologian Henry Duméry wisely observed, “ On ne repousse l’Absolu qu'au nom d’un Absolu meilleure .” ("One does not reject the Absolute except in the name of a higher Absolute.") In other words, one needs to have some ultimate concern or ground from which to orient one's world view. If one does not believe in a traditional God-image as it comes through a tradition, then one replaces it with some other ideal. He also observed that atheism criticizes caricatures of God rather than the real God. (" L’athéisme critique plus des caricatures de Dieu que le vrai Dieu. "). Quite often these caricatures are served up by believers themselves who are still on a very literal and childish level of comprehension of their own system. In other words, whatever ideals are presented as the "absolute" -- even if they are consciously s...