In the past century, people belonging to the Hindu-Buddhist cultural sphere have started projecting the characteristics of their own spiritual masters on the monotheist prophets. Thus, when Jesus says: %uFFFDThe Kingdom of God is among you%uFFFD, meaning %uFFFDI, Jesus, am the Kingdom of God%uFFFD, these good-natured Orientals take it to mean: %uFFFDThe Kingdom of God is inside of you, waiting to be discovered through meditation.%uFFFD They have started to say that the prophets were a kind of yogis who taught their followers a way to attain a divine state of consciousness.
In fact, prophecy is radically different from yoga: it means allowing an outside entity, which in the case of monotheism is called Yahweh/God/Allah, to blow certain consciousness contents into your mind. Consciousness is not turned inward, but is (or believes it is) communicating with another Being. Moreover, the mind is not being emptied of its contents and made to rest in itself, as it is in yoga; on the contrary, it is being filled with a message beyond one%uFFFDs control. The prophet receives a certain information: prophecy is like talking, though with an unusual partner via an unusual channel; but yoga is silence. Lastly, if it is correct that prophethood is a mental aberration and a delusion, then that makes it the very antithesis of yoga, which is an undisturbed and realistic awareness of pure consciousness.
Yoga is not an erratic and disturbing experience which befalls yo
RE:Psychology of Prohetism
by on Dec 24, 2007 10:49 PM Permalink
Yoga is not an erratic and disturbing experience which befalls you and drives you to tirades of doom and to outbursts against your fellow men. It is a systematic discipline and makes the practitioner calm and serene. The word yoga means discipline, control (it is also translated as uniting: not the soul with an outsider called God, but the mind with its object, i.e. concentration). Since its field of working is consciousness, it is not interested in outward experiences such as recognition and glorification, or martyrdom. There is nothing dramatic about yoga, in stark contrast to the dramas enacted and encountered by the prophets. The most remarkable difference between the prophets%uFFFD discourse and that of the rishis, is certainly this. The prophets all talk about themselves a lot. They think they are very special, this one person in this one body is different from the rest and has an exclusive relationship with the Creator. But the rishis talked about a universal way, a world order in which we all participate, a state of consciousness we can all achieve. If God is defined as that which transcends all worldly differences, the One above the Many, then this universalism is far more divine than the prophets%uFFFD exclusivism.
What Hindus who have been trapped in a sentimental glorification of Jesus and other prophets will have to learn, is that the essence of Hindu Dharma is not is not %uFFFDtolerance, or equal respect for all religions, but Satya, truth
RE:RE:Psychology of Prohetism
by on Dec 24, 2007 10:50 PM Permalink
The problem with Christianity and Islam is superficially their intolerance and fanaticism. But this intolerance is a consequence of these religions%uFFFD untruthfulness: if your belief system is based on delusions, you have to pre-empt rational inquiry into it and shield it from contact with more sustainable thought systems. The fundamental problem with the monotheist religions is not that they are intolerant, but that they are untrue, (Asatya or Anrita).
At this point many Hindus will be sincerely shocked, they will object, and Christian polemists will express the same objection: %uFFFDBy denouncing some religions as untrue, you are making a pretentious claim to knowing the ultimate truth.%uFFFD In the case of Christians who know and believe the essence of their religion, this objection is highly insincere, as they themselves are confidently claiming to possess the ultimate, God-given truth. Otherwise, the objection against absolute truth-claims may be valid. The point is that by denouncing the defining beliefs of Christianity (and similarly, Islam) as untrue, we are not making a claim to know the final truth. The quest for the final truth remains open. When scientists find that a certain hypothesis is empirically disproves, they henceforth treat it as untrue and move on to more promising hypotheses; this does not imply a pretentious claim to ultimate truth. It is simply that once a belief is found to be untrue, we should not burden ourselves with it anymore,...
RE:RE:RE:Psychology of Prohetism
by on Dec 24, 2007 10:52 PM Permalink
so that we can keep ourselves free for something more true.
There are other respects also in which Christianity and Sanatana Dharma are radically different. Christianity worships a suffering convict on the cross, and consequently glorifies suffering. To a woman who was heavily suffering, mother Teresa wrote: %uFFFDYou should be grateful for this suffering. It is Christ%uFFFDs way of kissing you.%uFFFD
In a sense, there is something to it that %uFFFDhardships are the spice of life, they mould the perfect man%uFFFD. Even so, the unabashed glorification of happiness is a far healthier attitude than the glorification of suffering. Hardships will come anyway, but it is morbid to focus the mind on them unnecessarily. When Christians hear Chinese people wish each other %uFFFDmuch wealth%uFFFD or in fact %uFFFDmuch money%uFFFD, on New Year%uFFFDs day, they find it rather shocking. When they see depictions of Lakshmi or Ganesh, with all their opulence and well-being and endless generosity, they find something is very wrong. At any rate, it is a kind of iconography which you will not find in any church. Like Christianity, several Sanatana traditions, esp. Buddhism, focus on suffering. But they have an unambiguous verdict: suffering is the problem, we offer a way out of it. The common-sense position of mainstream Hindu sources like the Bhagavad Gita is that suffering is a fact of life, that we have to bravely face it, that enduring it makes us stronger; but not that we should glorify it.
RE:RE:RE:RE:Psychology of Prohetism
by on Dec 24, 2007 10:53 PM Permalink
In Christianity, a straightforward remedy against suffering is always resented as a bit selfish; since we are sinners, suffering is what we deserve.
This attitude to suffering is symptomatic of the single most harmful characteristic of Christianity: its lack of balance. In traditional Pagan and secular systems of ethics, the principle of the Golden Mean is duly emphasized (Aristotle, Confucius, Buddha); by contrast, Christianity fosters a sentimental extremism.
The only Bible books that consist of lucid observations about life, are non-prophetic books like Proverbs and Qohelet (Ecclesiastes). They belong to a section of the Old Testament called Ketuvim, %uFFFDWritings%uFFFD, for which no divine source is claimed. Their source is just human and normal, rather like any collection of quotations or %uFFFDCollected Proverbs from the Middle East%uFFFD. These sayings range from the trivial and uninspired to the witty and the profound. Some good, some not so good, a few gems: your average human product. These human sayings have some good advice to offer on how to conduct life; in the prophetic revelations, it is hard to find any such good advice.
RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Psychology of Prohetism
by on Dec 24, 2007 10:57 PM Permalink
Prophetism has caused innumerable hardships without giving anything valuable in return. Not one of the valuable things in the cultures dominated by it, can be traced to their prophetic-monotheistic component. Its source has more often than not been mental darkness. Today, there is no justification for keeping humanity in the mental prison of prophetism any longer. From the book (available online) Psychology of Prophetism - A Secular Look at the Bible by Koenraad Elst
RE:Psychology of Prohetism
by Roger Binny on Dec 25, 2007 01:53 AM Permalink
I don't understand why we hindus have to explain our religion to fanatical identities of this world? Hinduism is a way of life. It is not a cult or religion of one person. It is about living beings. So to all fanatics you won't understand it. Go get your 16 or 21 virgin, drink wine, eat pork and be merry.
