"Mumbo Jumbo" Hindu Spirituality

[Raz2802]

Hinduism and its offshoots has brought forth with it many Quixotic spiritual theories which has little or no practical applications. Some of them are: Non Duality, Sat-Chit-Ananda, Nirvana, Moksha, Siddhi & Sahasrara.

They all belong to the realms of a world of fantasy created with God as the base. They are all about supramental & psychic consciousness, merging with the God, liberation from reincarnation & suffering, and all such “spiritual nautanki”!

People who swear by these theories project these as some kind of a formula to experience everlasting bliss and liberation from sufferings of all kind.

For me those spiritual formulas are nothing but HALLUCINATIONS…

… suffered by people who have drugged themselves with the believe in God! And some of them go about peddling such hallucinatory ideas amongst the masses with great articulation and oration – and also create a business out of it.

And since the masses already have minds which are extremely prone to all kinds of superstition and irrational beliefs, they lap everything up without any questions.

Little do they realize that spiritual theories emanating from and based on God are all bakwas having NO practical value at all! Because it’s always about surrendering to God or merging with Him or achieving some (impossible) level of consciousness.

The reason why such self-delusory beliefs have taken roots is because…

… its proponents having sacrificed the real world around them (and do not live the kind of lives that the ordinary person does…that is looking after a family and building a career and all that), have spent their whole lives drugging themselves with the belief in a supernatural power called God - and creating hallucinatory spiritual theories with God as the main base. And because of the psychological make-up of theists, people are instantly attracted to it.

But has humanity benefited from these “spiritual nautanki”? In no way at all!

Has the world become highly spiritual? No!

Has the world seen the end of all kinds of social miseries and social evils? No!

Of course, I want the human society to me more Spiritual…

… and more Disciplined and also more Matured. But I do not want to parade some idealistic and exotic and fantastic spiritual ideas for this. I am not interested in some idealistic society. For the simple reason that this is IMPOSSIBLE to achieve!

In order to be more Spiritual and more Disciplined and also more Matured, I suggest that people read books written by authors all over the world on these issues and many more. More importantly, such books are not influenced by any God. They all are secular, practical, realistic and to-the-point, in whatever they are trying to explain.

I admit even then no idealistic society is possible!

But, at least, people can learn something practical and achievable and try to implement them in their lives, in varying degrees.

Finally, another reason why those “spiritual nautanki” is being paraded…

… is because it also makes for GOOD BUSINESS too!

[Naushirvan]

(03-Jul-2012, 07:12 PM)Raz2802 Wrote: They all belong to the realms of a world of fantasy created with God as the base. They are all about supramental & psychic consciousness, merging with the God, liberation from reincarnation & suffering, and all such “spiritual nautanki”!

Personally, I have always found the notion of Liberation and 'merging with god' quite disturbing. It betokens a profoundly egotistical worldview where the human soul is trapped and must work towards liberating itself from the world, which is ultimately an 'illusion'. So it is 'my' liberation, 'my' soul and 'my' need to merge with god. This insidious way of thought has greatly encumbered the ability of many individuals to be happy,enlightened and productive members of their respective societies. I know two such people who sadly frittered away their lives in quest of some unattainable liberation.

This fretting is best summed up in Adi Shankarachaarya's verses:

punarapi jananam punarapi maranam, punarapi janani jathare shayanam|
ih sansaare khalu dustaarey, kripaya paarey paahey muraarey||
( Born again, dying again, sleeping once again in a mother's belly - here in this endless ocean of samsara (the world), which is difficult to cross, protect me by your grace, O Murari.)

So, the world is something to be endured. It is a burden which bogs down one's spiritual career. It must be done with as early as possible. It is not a place to be enjoyed or to marvel at.For the Sufi mystic it is 'aalam-e-naapaayedaar'( lit. a world with no feet) and for the Hindu ascetic it is 'nashwar jagat'( lit. impermanent world).

This way of thinking, I believe, smothers creativity,rational inquiry and inquisitiveness. It obviates answers and explanations. "It is after all, an illusion" is the canned response. It is akin to pressing the 'god button' every time one encounters baffling questions( "God did it!").

[arvindiyer]

(03-Jul-2012, 10:36 PM)Naushirvan Wrote: So, the world is something to be endured. It is a burden which bogs down one's spiritual career. It must be done with as early as possible. It is not a place to be enjoyed or to marvel at.For the Sufi mystic it is 'aalam-e-naapaayedaar'( lit. a world with no feet) and for the Hindu ascetic it is 'nashwar jagat'( lit. impermanent world).

The assumption that only that which is everlasting is worthwhile seems to be shared across faiths. Bhagavad Gita Chapter 5 Verse 22 proclaims that the wise shun all those pleasures that 'have a beginning and end', since they are really only 'wombs of sorrow'. In this clip from Sam Harris quoted here, he makes the point that the fact that most pleasures are impermanent does not render them worthless. Quoting Harris:

Quote:The subtext of this question and quite often also text is that 'Unless experience lasts forever, there is no point. It means nothing'. Just try to map this on to your life...Every good meal you've had, every pleasant experience as opposed to an unpleasant one, every relationship....None of it means anything, because it ends! A good movie is meaningless. It's no better than a bad movie, because it ends! This is a strange idea, that unless we disappear into infinity with our experience, there is no difference between the most sublime happiness and the most abject suffering. I think when you actually try to connect with that intuition, it's strange and really insupportable in our moment-to-moment experience. We care very deeply about the character of our experience. It is the only thing we can care about.

Quite to the contrary, This notion of eternity, this notion of nothing matters here, but matters only over the long haul, in the afterlife, because the bulk of our experience is after we die; this religious idea actually robs life of its meaning. It doesn’t bring meaning to life. It renders meaningless all of the precious moments we have while alive. This is the only life we are certain of. And it is continually ending. It not only ends in death but it ends in each moment and things change. And that makes each moment precious.