firedragon
Veteran Member
Well, in The Hindu philosophy, don't you think that everything is Brahman?
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Question about Brahman
- Thread starter Psalm23
- Start date
Well, in The Hindu philosophy, don't you think that everything is Brahman?
Martin
Spam, wonderful spam (bloody vikings!)
That's the case in the Advaita schools.
firedragon
Veteran Member
Not in davaitha philosophy?
Psalm23
Well-Known Member
Perhaps. There is much about Hinduism I don’t know.
Psalm23
Well-Known Member
Can someone be an atheist and believe all is Brahman? If so, how would this work?
PoetPhilosopher
Veteran Member
That's actually an excellent question. You can be Hindu and an atheist, I know that much.
@Aupmanyav - do you have a take on this question?
firedragon
Veteran Member
Oh. Hinduism is way too vast for us to ever know enough. It is probably the one umbrella that has so much of text and philosophy.
Anyway, bottomline is, in Hinduism every particle in the universe is Brahman himself. You and me too.
Martin
Spam, wonderful spam (bloody vikings!)
I'm not an expert on this stuff, but Vedanta is one of the six schools of Hinduism, of which Advaita Vedanta is a sub-school. Diversity and plurality is the hallmark of the Dharmic traditions.
firedragon
Veteran Member
Brother. Advaitha or Dvaitha, both schools of thought, if its vedantic, its still pantheistic. Dvaitha comes from Dvi, or two. Advaitha is A as in "No" which means its "not two" or "non-dualist". There are advaitha vedanta and advaitha non-vedanta. The latter being predominantly atheistic. But the rest are still theistic, and they all come from the same root, that the Brahman is everything.
Martin
Spam, wonderful spam (bloody vikings!)
Like I said, I'm not an expert.
firedragon
Veteran Member
No one can in my opinion be an expert in Hindu philosophy brother. It’s way too vast. So we’re all good. And we can exchange a lot of things.
PoetPhilosopher
Veteran Member
In my limited understanding, I feel there's quite a bit of truth to that. I feel there are people that can become enlightened and have much to share, and that their knowledge is to be respected. But to me, that's a little bit different than becoming an expert of the subject.
Yes, by using semantics to make it appear different. Some call Brahman God. Some don't. Some limit the term 'God' to the Abrahamic god, Yeshua. Others don't.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
Yes, sure Kit-Kat. It works fine with non-dual belief in Hinduism and with many people in this forum who go with the non-dual belief in Hinduism (Advaita). We do not take Brahman as a God but as the stuff of universe, like atoms. Every thing in the universe is made up of that. Be is a saint or a street dog. Krishna said in Gita:
"Be it a learned and gentle brāhmaṇa, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater (someone who has been ex-communicated from the society - Chandala, for committing some heinous crime), the wise see all of them as the same."
Bg. 5.18
Brahman 'itself'. Brahman is not a 'he'.
Yeah, in my belief (not in all Hinduism), the Saints as well as Hitler, Stalin, Franco, Pol Pot, Saddam, Gadafi, Osama and Caliph Ibrahim, all were nothing other than Brahman. Though they did not realize it. They were also constituted by various atoms just like us. We do not make any distinctions.
Depending on what a person believes, Advaita can be theistic or atheistic, but Dvaita (Duality), clearly, by definition, is not pantheistic.
There is no 'Advaita non-Vedanta'. That is your unfamiliarity with Hinduism.
Hindu philosophies are not that difficult to understand once one gets the hang of them. There are many members in the forum who understand them very well. I too am a sort of expert on them.
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No.
There is no evil. There is suffering (dukkha). What is suffering.. it is the psychological disjoint between what we expect would cause us joy and happiness and satisfaction and what we actually experience in the world. But our ultimate Self is Brahman. Thus the only thing that would cause us joy is being and experiencing who we are which is Brahman. As long as we are not That or our desires are not directed towards that our actions and experiences will Always fail to deliver satisfaction.
In this context, actions that generally increase this disjoint is called evil. Actions that generally decrease this disjoint is called good.
At the level of Brahman there is no evil or good for in all its actions it remains and always is Brahman. In a strange sense then it is our illusory ego that is feeling the effects of suffering. Once the ego goes away, we understand that there was no one who was suffering at all.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
You are a believer in Abrahamic God, I do not even believe in existence of Gods, so what to talk of the Abrahamic God? Hinduism is the way of life and sets of beliefs created by people in India with addition of the Vedic beliefs of Indo-European migrants from Central Asia. It was not created by any imaginary Abrahamic God.
PearlSeeker
Well-Known Member
What about Ramakrishna's statements?
What is knowledge? And what is the nature of this ego? ‘God alone is the Doer, and none else’ – that is knowledge. I am not the doer; I am a mere instrument in His hand. Therefore I say: ‘O Mother, Thou art the Operator and I am the machine. Thou art the Indweller and I am the house. Thou art the Driver and I am the carriage. I move as Thou movest me. I do as Thou makest me do. I speak as Thou makest me speak. Not I, not I, but Thou, but Thou.’
if a man has the firm conviction that God alone is the Doer and he is His instrument, then he cannot do anything sinful. He who has learnt to dance correctly never makes a false step.
if a man has the firm conviction that God alone is the Doer and he is His instrument, then he cannot do anything sinful. He who has learnt to dance correctly never makes a false step.