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Question about Hindus and the future

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
So if I understand, you do believe in gods. But do all Hindus believe in the existence of gods? I mean I see some here who call themselves Christian but don't believe Jesus or Moses even existed...and of course, there are a vast number of Hindus, just like there are many who call themselves Christian with the various sects.
We create our own realities.
The world we perceive is a dream. There are different dreams at different levels of reality.

Schrödinger's cat may be both alive and dead, since, in reality, he's a potential. Light might be a wave or a particle. It depends on your perception.
For some, gods exist, they're real. But they're not ultimately real; not objectively real.

Perforce, we live in the world we perceive. Maybe it has gods, trees and cars, maybe not. Reality is an individual dream.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Thanks for the addition.
I like Ishwara Shiva with His attributes
I'm rather partial to Shiva, as well. He's the Destroyer -- of illusion. He reveals the Reality beyond the dream.


Brahman concept makes most sense to me, as to understand Creation

Brahman-with-attributes I like to experience the magic of Creation
This Brahman concept rather resembles a quantum Reality, no?
 
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Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Our beliefs are obviously different, and I will just tell you that the various sects, or entities of those calling themselves Christian do vary as well about how to interpret the various prophecies, but -- the counting of time is outlined for humans. Later for that, i'll have to do some research about that to be clearer. Then maybe study more about Einstein. :) (not really -- he died kind of young in a way, I used to think 70 or so people were goners but now that I'm older I have a different viewpoint about 'old age'-- Einstein had no substantial hope about the future but who knows? Maybe God will be kind to him by allowing him to see life again. I know God will not be cruel.)
Yes, our beliefs are very different -- but we can still be friends, no? I mean, who doesn't like dulcimers? ;)

The Abrahamic religions and concepts of reality are fundamentally different from The 'Eastern' concepts of Reality. Irreconcilably so in the case of Vedanta. I daresay you'll find yourself completely flummoxed if you try to fit a Hindu peg into an Abrahamic hole.

There is a single, common reality in the Abrahamic world. There is time, with birth, life, death and eternal afterlife. There is good and bad, right and wrong. There is God and man. These do not Really exist in Hindu metaphysics.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
It's complicated. Atheism with regard to Hinduism is debated. Cultural Hindus can be atheist for sure. But some folks would say atheism is outside of Hinduism. Certainly there are atheistic schools within Indian thought. That's not debatable. No matter which side you are on in any such debate, 99% of Hindus are tolerant of other views. There is an over-riding tolerance to us.

As to God, there may be strict monotheists, but there are also henotheists (One Supreme God, AND other Gods) and polytheists. With regard to variety, we're diverse to an almost unimaginable extent. Here on this forum, no two Hindus are a lot alike.
Reality is structured in consciousness. Gods are tools we create to direct our spiritual focus. But our ultimate goal is enlightenment, a state where the tools are no longer needed, and are transcended.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
ok, got it. thanks. I heard about the no future, no time thing (complete dissolution or something like that) but honestly it doesn't entice me. I prefer living but in a different environment. Oh yes, it's called Nirvana, right?
Yes, we all must live the lives we were born to, our individual 'blueprints' of life. It's called dharma. We all have our own preferences. For you, it's proper to live a Christian life in a material world. That's your dharma.

Nirvana? Sure, nirvana will do, or enlightenment, or moksha, or samadhi -- We Hindus love to make things as complicated as possible. ;)
 

RestlessSoul

Well-Known Member
We create our own realities.
The world we perceive is a dream. There are different dreams at different levels of reality.

Schrödinger's cat may be both alive and dead, since, in reality, he's a potential. Light might be a wave or a particle. It depends on your perception.
For some, gods exist, they're real. But they're not ultimately real; not objectively real.

Perforce, we live in the world we perceive. Maybe it has gods, trees and cars, maybe not. Reality is an individual dream.


Isn’t the point with Schrödinger’s cat, that while in the box, rather than being alive or dead, he exhibits characteristics of both states simultaneously? It’s only when the box is opened - ie a measurement is taken - that the duality (observable in the form of interference patterns) collapses into one or other state.

Adherents of wave function realism tend to argue - I don’t think they all agree - that a higher reality, a universal wave function (which you might perhaps call Brahman) directs all the quanta in a higher dimensional universe. We as observers inhabit a 3D world (actually 3 spacial dimensions and one temporal), but the universal wave function describes a 3ND reality, where N is the number of particles in a system. Thus, the fundamental spacial and temporal relations of the world we appear to inhabit, are governed by the dynamics of a higher dimensional reality. We can observe some of the workings of that universal wave function in high-dimensional space, but our limited consciousness, in it’s current stage of evolution anyway, cannot possibly envisage or conceptualise it.

As Immanuel Kant said, it’s not that noumenal reality doesn’t exist, but rather that our experience of it is necessarily subjective, and the relation between noumenon and phenomenon in human consciousness is never entirely reconcilable.

In the story of Chuang-tzu’s dream, he awoke from a dream in which as a butterfly, he was oblivious to the fact he was Chuang-tzu. On awakening he was uncertain if he was a butterfly in Chuang-tzu’s dream, or Chuang-tzu in the dream of a butterfly. Both realities are perhaps equally real and equally illusory, but the true significance is that Chuang-tzu and the butterfly share a common awareness, through their apparently separate but ultimately interdependent subjective paradigms.
 
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sayak83

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
What do Hindus believe about the future of the earth and the lives of humans as well as others?
Ok as far as I understand from the Gita and a few other sources like the Visnu Purana etc.

The lifespan of one universe is said to be around 3 trillion year which corresponds to one divine year of the creator deity (Brahma). After each divine year, the universe is destroyed and a new one created which exists for another 3 trillion years and so on. The creator deity does this for 100 of his years after which he dies dissolving the entire multiverse. So the lifespan of the multiverse is about 300 trillion years. After which there is another 300 trillion years of nothingness (basically unmanifested Brahman without shape or form). Then another multiverse starts its life and a new creator deity appears from the unmanifest Brahman.

On the smaller end of the scale, when you think of existence of mankind or other living things, the average lifespan of mankind as a species is set to 4.3 million years (divided into 4 sub-epochs called yugas). The 4.3 million year units are grouped together into major epochs (manvataras) that are bookended by planetary scale great catastrophes (pralayas) that occur on average every 300 million years, after which life often has to make a fresh start. The lifespan of a life-bearing planet itself is set to about 4.3 billion years (a 12 hour day period of the creator deity) plus another 4.3 billion years when the planet undergoes destruction and dissolution (12 hour night period of the creator deity). So the total lifespan of a life bearing planet is about 8.6 billion years. After the destruction of an old planet, a new planet is created again and thus the cycle goes on till the end of the universe (3 trillion years).

The calculations vary between book to book. But the time scale magnitudes are about this.
Yuga Cycle - Wikipedia

Buddhist cosmologies also have similar time scales I think.
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
Reality is structured in consciousness. Gods are tools we create to direct our spiritual focus. But our ultimate goal is enlightenment, a state where the tools are no longer needed, and are transcended.
Spoken like a true Vedantist.
 

soulsurvivor

Active Member
Premium Member
What do Hindus believe about the future of the earth and the lives of humans as well as others?
Hinduism does not specifically address the end of Earth or the end of life on it - but the Earth does go through cycles or yugas/ages. There are four different yugas - Kali yuga, Dwapara yuga, Treta and Satya yuga of increasing spirituality and justice (Kali is the worst). There are some who believe that Kali yuga (the current age) is ending and we are entering a better age. This cycle of yugas goes on more or less forever.

But the universe itself is also cyclic and it lasts only as long as the life of Brahma (or its Creator). The life of the universe is about 3.11 trillion years (numbers vary in different books). After the end there is an equal time of nothingness and the universe is reborn, This cycle of the birth and death of the universe goes on for eternity.

Some more details here: Hindu Gods and Goddesses
 

YoursTrue

Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
We create our own realities.
The world we perceive is a dream. There are different dreams at different levels of reality.

Schrödinger's cat may be both alive and dead, since, in reality, he's a potential. Light might be a wave or a particle. It depends on your perception.
For some, gods exist, they're real. But they're not ultimately real; not objectively real.

Perforce, we live in the world we perceive. Maybe it has gods, trees and cars, maybe not. Reality is an individual dream.
My world is kind of small. For instance, right now I know that I'm using my laptop. I'm in a chair. What's happening in China is not within my consciousness. Right now. Actually, what's happening outside my front door is not known to me either. :) Anyway, have a good one.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
When asking metaphysical questions of Hindus, it usually helps to specify what level of reality your asking about. There can be different correct answers for different levels.
The Abrahamic religions don't have these alternate realities, so it's confusing when conflicting answers are given.
 

YoursTrue

Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
When asking metaphysical questions of Hindus, it usually helps to specify what level of reality your asking about. There can be different correct answers for different levels.
The Abrahamic religions don't have these alternate realities, so it's confusing when conflicting answers are given.
I can't speak for all what you call "Abrahamic religions," but I do know and believe that there is a start-off with prophecies in the Bible. Thus, each to his own in terms of belief.
 
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