Thursday, November 30, 2006

Shiva Shakti and Yoga-Maya

Life is a journey towards our Destiny. Shiva is our destiny. Shiva is the metaphor for the concept of Death. Shakti, in Hindu mythology, is the better half of Shiva. Shakti is the metaphor for the life forces.

Shakti by its very nature is flowing, always moving and never stops. We move towards our destiny pocessed by Shakti. Shakti is thus the mother, the giver of life and its sustainer. when we get tired, unable to keep pace with life; the Shakti must leave us behind. For, Shakti, by its very nature must flow on.

As we stop walking, devoid of Shakti, we lie down. Shiva, the destiny, takes compassion and comes to us.

Devoid of all desires, Shiva accepts us; And, we unite with Shiva, our destiny. we loose all our identity. This is Moksha.

Shiva is the father, for without death there cannot be life.

In the Kali imagery, the Shaki stands upon Shiva! meaning that the death is the foundation of life.

Life builds upon death. This inter-play of duality of Shiva and Shakti is all but apparent. Apparently, this is a duality, but in reality its Unity. Ardhnareshawara metaphorically represents this reality of Unity of the apparent duality. Thus the unified cycle of life and death is represented by kalachakra; the great wheel of time.

But, this duality of life and death is an illusion; the illusion of Yoga-Maya. Yogamaya is infinite, that is Shunya. In sanskrit, shunya literally means nothing, and represents both infinity as well as zero. This nothingness is everything.

Here is its sanskrit shloka:
Itrans format:

shivaashaktisyacyevaM pravijayate yogamaayaa ./
yogamaayastu dhuritaM kAlachakraM ././
kAlachakraM sarvaadie iiti ./
sarvaadie iiti shunyaM ././

Unicode format:
शिवाशक्तिस्यच्येवं प्रविजयते योगमाया।
योगमायस्तु धुरितं कालचक्रं।।
कालचक्रं सर्वादि ईति।
सर्वादि ईति शुन्यं।।

ॐ नमो शिवाय॥

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Deepak chopra on Richard Dawkins

My Comments Deepak Chopra's take on Richard Dawkins:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/the-god-delusion-part-4_b_34842.html

Re: Do you think you are conscious and intelligent, or are you being fooled by random chemical reactions inside your skull?

Yes, its called Maya in Hinduism. IMHO, consciousness emerges in higher dimension as an self organising processes at molecular level.

And, this leads us to the Free Will debate. The question is if the consciousness emerges out of quantum dynamics, then where is the free will? And, the karma is predicted by the initial conditions at the start of the current cycle (or Big Bang if you please) of the Universe.

My hypothesis is, that though consciousness is the projection from neural network of our brains and at yet lower dimensions its quantum interactions; The higher level influence the lower level through a feedback system. Just like in computers, a software program influences the electrons flow in the transistor etched on the silicon chip, and yet the software is manifested at electron level within the same silicon chip, what we call RAM.

Re: then we must assume that throwing water and salt together--along with about six other basic building blocks of organic chemicals--suddenly makes them intelligent...

again the answer is Yes! only the process of self organisation took a few billion years.

If you wish to give God the credit for this creative intelligence, go right ahead and do it, I have no problems with that; as long as, that God, that you created, does not answer personal prayers by breaking the laws of the nature.

(c) 2006, Ashish Banerjee, www.Ashish.Banerjee.name

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Friday, November 17, 2006

Illusions by Richard Bach (ISBN 0-440-20488-7)

Illusions by Richard Bach (ISBN 0-440-20488-7)

Illusions is a mystical first person narrative of a lonely biplane pilot, who makes his living by selling air rides for $3 for ten minutes. He gets an imaginary friend and Messiah called Donald Shimoda, with whom he tries to reconcile the preachings of the Bible, the modern physics and the Indian mystic concept of Maya (illusion).
Twice in this narrative the imagery of this imaginary friend borders at schizophrenia. Once when he meets the Vampire and the other time Don is assassinated. The two underlying Christian beliefs, that is of the second coming of Jesus and the violent death that the Messiah must suffer for the salvation of the humankind; are intricately woven in the story. The Indian concept of Maya (Illusion) and that of concept of rebirth is also used as the fabric of the narration.
Richard introduces two innovations that of the God is not referred as He but Is. The second being that imagination is sought to replace faith as the foundation of one's religion.
He attempt to straighten the triangle into a straight line. The vertices's of the triangle being Maya, Christianity and science.
Overall a readable book, if one is comfortable with the concept of Maya.

(c) 2006, Ashish Banerjee, www.Ashish.Banerjee.name

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Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Scientists and Their Gods

My friend Ranjan sent me this link:
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/schaefer/docs/scientists.html
I would like to share my response to this beautifully written article above.

Re: This is a story from the end of Landau's life....
I did not get the meaning of the Landau's death bed story. Are they saying that if he believed in God, then and only then God would have saved him? Or does it mean he would have died with a false hope of after life?
and
Re:Chandrasekhar : But I have a feeling of disappointment because the hope for contentment and a peaceful outlook on life as...

I think it is possible to be enlightened about a possibility of No God AND be happy. The whole world is an illusion created by our mind, yes its called Maya in Hinduism. And, this illusion can be as horrible or as beautiful as you want it to be.

I meditate regularly and feel ecstatic, its the goal to reach from Sakar (manifested) to Nirakar (un-manifested). One must realize the beauty of Yoga Maya.

Even Jesus, realized it when he said" The Kingdom of God is witin us" Luke 17:21
In Hinduism we say Mandir, that is maan ke andir (inside us).

So concept of a personal God is NOT useless, it is the first stepping stone to enlightenment. A journey from Saakar to Nirakar.

We humans have a God circuit built within us during evolution. So, we need God, and necessity is the mother of invention. Thus all civilizations invented the concept of God.

There is a beautiful insight given by a poetry derived from Brihadaryanaka Upanishad mantra 30, Canto 28.

Lead me from the unreal, to the Reality;
Lead me from the darkness, to the Light;
Lead me from the finite, to the Infinity.

(given below is the Unicode formatted Sanskrit text, you need to turn on Unicode support to view them properly)
असतो मा सद्गमय
तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय
मृत्योर्मामृतं गमय।
asato ma sadgamaya
tamaso ma jyotirgamaya,
mriityor ma amriitam gamaya |

Here is more if you would like to know about my thoughts:
http://ashishbanerjee.blogspot.com/2006/05/neo-vedanta.html

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