Ques on MahaBhrarta. Peep in/ DT Nt pg 25 - Page 20

Originally posted by: shruthiravi

@Lakshmi currently I am busy with my book. I am planning to publish seven vows which I had written in IF. I was very happy to see u here to discuss once again on arjun and Krishna.

Hi all. I'm happy to announce that I asked for this to be opened again, hopefully we can continue to have more fruitful discussions.

So, to launch on again the debate I been reading the part in Mahabharata where Lord Krishna explains the BG to Arjun more precisely what he said about reincarnation, see the thing is that the more you read about it again, each time, you get a whole new perspective and lots of questions.

Hence, I was thinking a lot lately about karma, and the fact that if we want to be reunited with the Supreme Lord and not be born in this materialistic world , we must do good, to put it in simple terms, and we must also be self-aware souls (self consciousness) so that we won't be born again and suffer, or worst be born as an animal or insect. This is what vedic tells us right?; (I didnt put the verses that say that but feel free to add it)

1)But my question would be suppose I do bad and I'm born as a insect because of my bad karma, how can I lift myself from this situation especially if I do not have the consciousness to do it? Since, I'm an insect, so does that mean I will be trapped in this cycle of birth/rebirth forever? Meaning only us humans can attain the supreme soul because we have the means to do it? Once we go down the ladder because of bad karma, we cannot go against nature and go up and correct our karma?

This also brings me to my second question; why in the first place our souls got separated from the supreme soul?

2)Now, another question: I again thought about it a lot, and it might be difficult to put it in words, but I'll try. So, as I said before( please correct me always if I'm wrong!) that only self realized souls go to the supreme soul, and those who don't go through the cycle again and again and are reborn according to their karma, but how does that work? What I can inferred from my knowledge( MB+BG) is that once we are dead, our soul may enter a new womb but at what time does that exactly happen? 3 months when heartbeat is detected? And what if the soul doesn't have a womb to enter right now? Then what happens? We are made to believe that God separated his ( supreme) soul and created us sub-souls but how many are they? On a practical level, is the number of death and number of birth constant in the world? If not, then can we say that the difference is the number of souls that are the great souls who won' be born again? Again, the world population keeps increasing how do we explain that? Think about the MB war, loads of people died, what happened to their souls?

Okay second question is a bit crazy but it's an absolute pleasure to read your responses and to ponder on your questions. Cheers. Looking forward

Just now read most of the posts, very interesting! 👏In-depth philosophical,---- theoretical, analytical,and logical analysis is required to answer your questions dear thread maker!😊But at the same time, there is a logical impossibility to give answers in a straight forward way!

Originally posted by: Viswasruti

Just now read most of the posts, very interesting! 👏In-depth philosophical,---- theoretical, analytical,and logical analysis is required to answer your questions dear thread maker!😊But at the same time, there is a logical impossibility to give answers in a straight forward way!

Originally posted by: Y12345

Hi all. I'm happy to announce that I asked for this to be opened again, hopefully we can continue to have more fruitful discussions.

So, to launch on again the debate I been reading the part in Mahabharata where Lord Krishna explains the BG to Arjun more precisely what he said about reincarnation, see the thing is that the more you read about it again, each time, you get a whole new perspective and lots of questions.

Hence, I was thinking a lot lately about karma, and the fact that if we want to be reunited with the Supreme Lord and not be born in this materialistic world , we must do good, to put it in simple terms, and we must also be self-aware souls (self consciousness) so that we won't be born again and suffer, or worst be born as an animal or insect. This is what vedic tells us right?; (I didnt put the verses that say that but feel free to add it)

1)But my question would be suppose I do bad and I'm born as a insect because of my bad karma, how can I lift myself from this situation especially if I do not have the consciousness to do it? Since, I'm an insect, so does that mean I will be trapped in this cycle of birth/rebirth forever? Meaning only us humans can attain the supreme soul because we have the means to do it? Once we go down the ladder because of bad karma, we cannot go against nature and go up and correct our karma?----

To put our berserk desires under control, the Vedas, Upanishads say, if we do good karma we will get a decent birth , if we do harm to others then we will get a lower level of birth, defined the reincarnation theory in a clear manner to control the societal norms.

You are talking about Reincarnation which is a major aspect of Hindu philosophy, defines when the soul which is seen as eternal and part of a spiritual realm, returns to the physical realm in a new body after exiting from the previous body. A soul will complete this cycle many times, learning new things each time and working through its karma. This cycle of reincarnation is called samsara. One who seeks liberation & freedom from Samsara/cycle of birth and death, they should follow the religious path which purifies the soul from sinful thoughts and deeds. They should be revered only by considering the presence of Supreme Brahman, Paramatma ,--within them in the form of Atman/soul/Root consciousness! ---

Here I am trying to give you a simple analogy --- Sunlight 'the birth'>>>>> water vapour --'desires and deeds to fulfill those'>>>> clouds with lightning and thunders 'Karma theory ... consciousness and conscience'>>>>> Rain 'the ultimate result of the Atma in this world, the death'... the consequent transformation of the Atma into Paramatma>>>> the Paramatma is the ocean!

Started our journey as a small ray of the Sun, the consciousness of the Atma through the birth, and the ultimate truth is uniting into the Paramatma! The earth is the absorbant of the water drop, that is life!! that is we, with full of sapling like desires, flowers like colourful wants, fruits like aspirations>>> and ultimately inclination towards spreading life, that is seed, the root cause of the reincarnation!

I hope I can answer your first part of the first question, though I am not fully satisfied with my answer. I will be back to be with you to learn, to discuss and to share views on this interesting subject.

This also brings me to my second question; why in the first place our souls got separated from the supreme soul?

2)Now, another question: I again thought about it a lot, and it might be difficult to put it in words, but I'll try. So, as I said before( please correct me always if I'm wrong!) that only self realized souls go to the supreme soul, and those who don't go through the cycle again and again and are reborn according to their karma, but how does that work? What I can inferred from my knowledge( MB+BG) is that once we are dead, our soul may enter a new womb but at what time does that exactly happen? 3 months when heartbeat is detected? And what if the soul doesn't have a womb to enter right now? Then what happens? We are made to believe that God separated his ( supreme) soul and created us sub-souls but how many are they? On a practical level, is the number of death and number of birth constant in the world? If not, then can we say that the difference is the number of souls that are the great souls who won' be born again? Again, the world population keeps increasing how do we explain that? Think about the MB war, loads of people died, what happened to their souls?

Okay second question is a bit crazy but it's an absolute pleasure to read your responses and to ponder on your questions. Cheers. Looking forward

Originally posted by: Y12345

Hi all. I'm happy to announce that I asked for this to be opened again, hopefully we can continue to have more fruitful discussions.

So, to launch on again the debate I been reading the part in Mahabharata where Lord Krishna explains the BG to Arjun more precisely what he said about reincarnation, see the thing is that the more you read about it again, each time, you get a whole new perspective and lots of questions.

Hence, I was thinking a lot lately about karma, and the fact that if we want to be reunited with the Supreme Lord and not be born in this materialistic world , we must do good, to put it in simple terms, and we must also be self-aware souls (self consciousness) so that we won't be born again and suffer, or worst be born as an animal or insect. This is what vedic tells us right?; (I didnt put the verses that say that but feel free to add it)

1)But my question would be suppose I do bad and I'm born as a insect because of my bad karma, how can I lift myself from this situation especially if I do not have the consciousness to do it? Since, I'm an insect, so does that mean I will be trapped in this cycle of birth/rebirth forever? Meaning only us humans can attain the supreme soul because we have the means to do it? Once we go down the ladder because of bad karma, we cannot go against nature and go up and correct our karma?

This also brings me to my second question; why in the first place our souls got separated from the supreme soul?

Here, let me look into Sri Aurobindo Ghosh's theory on Human progress and Spiritual Evolution--- Acco to him, the Atma took many births to evolve itself until it becomes Paramatma i.e, a completely evolved Atma >>>> Acco to his theory , he explains -- the Atma with its full consciousness will try to evolve, to reach the acme of the spiritual consciousness to become Paramatma,>>> a human becoming Suprahuman through the spiritual and divine awakening within him which is a continuous process of Atma, -- in a way here he supported the evolution theory, but not in broader perspective , but with a spiritual perspective. According to Aurobindo, Ram and Krishna are the evolved Supra humans, and he said >. every atma has that high potential to become a supra human-like Ram and Krishna, in simple words a God! It means every Atma has the high potential to become Parmatma, >>God!

On this special spiritual aspect, there were many theories that emerged, i.e, Advaita, Dvaita and Visishtadwaita Vedanta theories.

Sankaracharya's Advaita philosophy defined the relationship of Atma to Paramatma as a nondual single entity, there is only one reality and that is God-- Aham Brahmasmi-- It says the creator and his creation are not two (dual) things but are one. Therefore simply put, aham brahmasmi means 'I am God'. Advaita means non-duality or absence of duality. It is a state of oneness with the rest of creation, of the subject with the object, of the knower with the known, of the lower self with the highest self and of the ordinary consciousness with the higher consciousness. It comes with a heightened sense of awareness in which one sees everything in oneself and as oneself. It is the state described in the Upanishads that experience the self as everything and everything in the self. It states that both the individual self 'Atman' and Brahman are the same.

The dvaita Vedanta thought --Madhvacharya propounded this philosophy. It considers Brahman and Atman as two different entities and Bhakti as the route to eternal salvation. According to Dvaita, Jivatma are many and Paramatma is one. Concerning the soul, Madhvacharya says that no two souls are alike. They each have different characteristics, different states of happiness/sorrow...the soul becomes similar to God in some respects when it is liberated, yet even in these respects, it is much inferior to God. Alternatively known as Bhedavāda, Tattvavāda and Bimbapratibimbavāda. Here, the difference between Atma and Paramatma is clearly visible.

Vishishtadvaita philosophy was pioneered by Ramanujacharya, literally means the Unique Advaita, that is, Advaita with some amendments!! While it accepts Brahman as the unified whole, it states>> He is characterized by multiple forms. According to Ramanujacharya, souls are intrinsically the same and all souls are alike in their quality. God stands for the whole universe and matter and souls form His body, He being THEIR soul. God is viewed as the cause and also as the effect. Ramanuja's philosophy is a fusion of the Vedas and the Bhagavata Purana. He was enormously influenced by the Tamil Bhakti Saints called Alvars. Vishishtadvaita is qualified monism, where God alone exists, but it admits a plurality of souls. It is midway between Advaita and Dvaita philosophies. God and the individual souls are inseparable, just like the fire and spark. In liberation, the Jivatma understands Paramatma, but do not merge in Paramatma.

In the final analysis, the above three philosophies are the different stages of spiritual evolution. No philosophy is inferior to the other. The majority of Hindus follow the Dvaita philosophy. They feel that God is the controller of their life, God is different from them. Advaita philosophy exactly conveys the meaning of the Upanishads, Brahma Sutras and Bhagavad Gita. However, it is still popular among the highly spiritually evolved people.

Please , correct me whenever it is necessary, I know, I am prone to confuse myself as well as others in matters of religion and philosophical aspects while thinking about those matters seriously.😊