Comments on Gurudom

Wednesday, May 23, 2007
comments on Gurudom
1) on yes , GURU is very important > A very informative blog. You are right. A real Guru lead us to GOD.
http://hari-vrinda-dham.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/05/yes-guru-is-very-important/comments.htm
(2) on our Eternal Guru is Lord Shiva >
What the Vedas declare is what may be called "non-duality". The Hindu tradition lays great emphasis on the individual's state of evolution and his personal spiritual requirements rather than propose a one size fits all kind of pseudo and impractical unity.
Hence Hindus are quite to free to take up a spiritual tradition that appeals most to them. There is also no bar on founding new traditions as long as they are not bigoted and fanatic, because that would violate the right to spiritual freedom of an individual.
It is in this light that the home shrine of a family and the personal deity of an individual aught to be seen. It is because of this that my Siva (or Ram or Vishnu) can be different from your Siva (or Ram of Vishnu). But we live in harmony because ultimately we (at least intellectually) realize that we are one in Him.
The names of the deities are really no personal names, they are the predominant 'vibrations' that the pesonality of the devotee can resonate with so that his spritual progress may be hastened. Not only the names, the nama-rupa is a careful construct that aims to guide the devotee from the world of relativity into non-duality over a path of least resistance. This is, in part, a brief introduction to Agamic worship.
Siva is the God Head, who is auspiciousness. At the end of a cycle of creation and sustenance He causes involution - which takes the creation back to the God Head. This involution - laya - is a concept which we should understand in terms of its actual Samskrit meaning rather than the English word "destruction" which is merely a mistake of translation.
The forms of Siva in vogue in India are many. The more popular form is that of a yogi who has ganga flowing from his sikha. This form's significance has to be understood more from the standpoint of an upasaka rather than an illeterate to whom the Puranas have a lot to tell in terms how Bhagiratha toiled to Ganga down to Earth. For an Upasaka, the ganga signifies the Nirvikalpa Samadhi and the ganga is Sushumna Ganga flowing in the Sushumna. Siva is what an upasaka finally merges in, the upasaka who earlier set out to Siva would be no more - because that Jiva actually never existed.
The Siva of the Vedas is the Universal God. The Ishwara, the deliverer of the fruits of Karma, because Karma itself is a mere principle - it is jada. Namakam is a prayer that seeks peace - for the human kind, for the society, for the home, for the individual. Peace is both the beginning and the end of all Sadhana.
Siva, Dakshinamurthy, is the ultimate Guru. Mere proximity of His Silence will deliver a soul. No questions asked, no big sadhanas, no mortifying the flesh, no elaborate worships... He is the first Guru, the Guru of Gurus.
Siva Nataraja dances to immobilize the kinetic Maya. Watch His dance, and you will never have to see the dance of Maya......
http://hari-vrinda-dham.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/05/our-eternal-guru-is-lord-shiva/comments.htm
6:39:26 AM
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Comments
K.Venugopal Wednesday, May 23, 2007 10:50:55 AM
The above writing is full of significance. I would recommend all readers to carefully go through it to understand the deeper significance of popular Hindu iconography. Congratulations, Mr. Reddy.

SChakradhari Wednesday, May 23, 2007 4:04:07 PM
Misunderstanding the concept of "non-duality" is the starting point of all banality and degradation of whole humanity, not just Hindus. It is necessary to understand that in the beginning, when human life started (of course, absolutely not as per the defective and unsubstantiable theory of evolution) there was non-duality in the sense that all humans were without the influence of the present day (or at that point, you could say, later day) concept of multiple religions or subsects. All of them must have had a common civilisation, culture, language or means of communication etc. Non-duality, by no stretch of imagination, can mean that the creator and creation are one!

K.Venugopal Thursday, May 24, 2007 1:44:19 PM

Dear Chakradhari,

Non-duality, as used in Hindu religious contexts, means that the creator and the created are one. You could say it is like the seed and the tree being one. In the case of humans, the seed is consciousness. Non-duality is not about a situation where there is a common civilization, culture, language etc. Such a situation is a mere external arrangement.Eternal separation of the creator and the created is a logical impossibility, because thereby God would be minus His creation. How can the absolute be minus anything? Hinduism explains such 'minus' as only seeming - maya. The Semitic religions accept the separation of the creator and the creator as an eternal truth. I see this as the basic error in Semitic religions.

SChakradhari Friday, May 25, 2007 10:07:30 AM
Dear Mr. Venugopal,The sooner you get out of the "Maya" of non-duality as you perceive it (forget what scriptures say, because they were written in circumstances which present day humans cannot appreciate or understand fully)the better it is for you. Who said God is "absolute" and hence he "includes" his creation? He is not "absolute" but He is "Supreme". A professor, to be supreme, does not include his students. A parent, to be supreme, does not include his or her offspring. We are children of God, we are not a part of Him. Even when we say we are His children, it is because He guides us, nurtures us, shows us the path, not because He "gives birth" to us in the popular sense that we understand.

K.Venugopal Friday, May 25, 2007 12:54:28 PM

Dear Shri Chakradhari,

All experience would say that you and I are two separate entities. But are we only the physical self? If you agree that we are something that survives our physical self, then, there being nothing physical to separate us, are we one? Maybe we have selves other than physical selves and even in those dimensions we are separate. Some say that so long as the ego in us exists, we would appear to be separate entities. However, the ego cannot exist eternally because what is limited cannot be eternal. Here again the question is, can we ever exist in an egoless state? Vedanta appears to be pointing out that we can and goes on to propound that in such a state, there is no duality. In such a state you, I and whatever, are all one. Call that oneness by whatever name – God, Brahman, Divine, Consciousness or simply Tat. Tat twam asi!In this understanding, it is well to note that our divinity is not something that unfolds in linear time, but is an awakening of consciousness that occurs even as we live in linear time. Therefore, the theory of the creator and creation being one is worth pursuing for salvation here and now. The Semitic religions promise salvation only in the hereafter.

SChakradhari Friday, May 25, 2007 4:54:39 PM
Dear Shri Venugopal,I am a firm believer in logic than in esoteric vedanta. We see what exists. Proponents of non-duality will see that in darkness, a rope appears as snake. At macro level they will say that whatever you see around you is all a dream. Please think logically and decide for yourself how you will compare a rope to a snake without knowing the physical characteristics of both. If everything around is a dream, who is the dreamer?You are talking about seeking salvation here and now instead of in future. You are talking about awakening higher consciousness where God, Brahman, Divine, Consciousness, you, I everything is one. This all appear very sophisticated to read in books. At the core of all is the stark reality that you and I are different, not physically, but as souls. You, the soul think differently and therefore act differently from I, another fellow soul, your brother. The Supreme Soul is our common father. None of these three can ever merge or become one. We have our eternal, unending, independent existence, with respective consciousness and ability to think and act.For want of space I cannot discuss further. But change your track, you will do justice to your potential.
K.Venugopal Friday, May 25, 2007 9:11:23 PM
Dear Shri Chakradhari,We would do justice to our potential only if we discover our potential. To discover our potential we have to know who we are. You surely must be familiar with the track taken by asking if I am my shirt, my name, my hand, my legs, etc and getting answers that each of these are only mine and not the “I” who I am. We would be on a truer journey if we seek to discover the “I’ that we actually are. It will all boil down to the fact that I am consciousness. Even now, in our non or not so awakened state, we can only exist to our own selves if we are conscious. When we are unconscious we are as good as dead, except that we can awake from our unconsciousness. Hinduism says that even if we die, we are not really dead. We awaken again, in another form. But let us not bother about all these. Let us just know that even for our day-to-day ordinary successful living, the deeper we go into our consciousness the more awakened we are and therefore more alive. Success is indeed being truly alive, is it not? Even if there is a separate God, what good is He if we are not conscious? Let God exist. But we need not fear Him, be His slave or pray to Him. We have only to discover ourselves. There are innumerable Gurus ever on the ready to help us discover ourselves. They can set us on our way. But the actual journey we have to travel by ourselves. The whole goal is to be free and not be bound to any beliefs.