Tattva-viveka
incarnations and vraja-bhakti
Guru-nistha Das - July 16, 2008 11:16 am
In the Caitanya-caritamrta, second chapter, Krsna is saying:
"My plenary portions can establish the principles of religion for each age. No one but Me, however, can bestow the kind of loving service performed by the residents of Vraja."
Later in the CC it is said however that Advaita Acharya and Nityananda Prabhu are Mahaprabhu's plenary portions, but we know that it's not true that Nityananda or Advaita acharya can't give vraja-bhakti, actually Nityananda is said to give it more easily than Svayam Bhagavan. How to think about this?
Zvonimir Tosic - July 16, 2008 12:04 pm
In the Caitanya-caritamrta, second chapter, Krsna is saying:"My plenary portions can establish the principles of religion for each age. No one but Me, however, can bestow the kind of loving service performed by the residents of Vraja." Later in the CC it is said however that Advaita Acharya and Nityananda Prabhu are Mahaprabhu's plenary portions, but we know that it's not true that Nityananda or Advaita acharya can't give vraja-bhakti, actually Nityananda is said to give it more easily than Svayam Bhagavan. How to think about this?
I think you've answered your question already. 
Citta Hari Dasa - July 16, 2008 4:55 pm
A brief answer:
Generally speaking amsas of svayam bhagavan don't give Vraja bhakti. The plenary portions you've mentioned--Sri Nityananda and Sri Advaita--came with Mahaprabhu and helped him disseminate Vraja-bhakti. Advaita Prabhu as Maha-Visnu/Siva does not do that. Nityananda Prabhu, being Balarama himself, is certainly capable of giving Vraja bhakti--in fact, we hear that there is no way to enter Vraja without his mercy--but that would be for the rasas that he presides over (dasya, sakhya, vatsalya). Madhurya-rasa always comes from the gopi section, which in the case of Nityananda Prabhu would be from his representation in madhurya-rasa, Ananga Manjari.
Zvonimir Tosic - July 16, 2008 11:11 pm
A brief answer:Generally speaking amsas of svayam bhagavan don't give Vraja bhakti.
This is very interesting overview dear Citta Hari, thank you.
Dasarathi Rama, long ago, gave blessings to the sadhus in the forest to be born in Vraja as the milkmaids. What's the cause of their deep desire and who granted them Vraja bhakti? Why didn't they embrace Ayodhya bhakti and Sri Rama, same as noble Hanuman, for example?
Also, who granted Krishna prema to Prahlada, even longer ago?
Then, when Krishna comes at the end of Dvapara yuga; he bemuses everyone, even the all-knowing Brahma, who is supposed to know few things about bhagavan. What I want to say is that yearning about Vraja bhakti is manifested at the "wrong side" of the Krishna's advent timeline. How we explain that?
Finally, if that's perfectly logical (I'd like if someone can tell me why), then why we have the advent of Sri Caitanya, even later on in the age of Kali, to introduce us, to sway us with the Krishna's Vraja bhakti .. if Krishna prema is a well known fact, even long, long ago in the forests of Ramayana or in the royal court of Hiranyakasipu?
Thank you once again.
Audarya-lila Dasa - July 16, 2008 11:47 pm
This is very interesting overview dear Citta Hari, thank you.
Dasarathi Rama, long ago, gave blessings to the sadhus in the forest to be born in Vraja as the milkmaids. What's the cause of their deep desire and who granted them Vraja bhakti? Why didn't they embrace Ayodhya's bhakti and Rama same as Hanuman, for example?
Also, who granted Krishna prema to Prahlada, even longer ago?
And then, when Krishna comes at the end of Dvapara yuga; he bemuses everyone, even the all-knowing Brahma, who is supposed to know few things about bhagavan. What I want to say is that yearning about Vraja bhakti is manifested at the "wrong side" of the Krishna's advent timeline. How we explain that?
Then, if that's perfectly logical (I'd like to see why), why then we have the advent of Sri Caitanya, even later on in the age of Kali, to introduce us to the Krishna's Vraja bhakti? .. if Krishna prema is a well known fact, even long, long ago in the forests of Ramayana or in the royal court of Hiranyakasipu?
Thank you once again.
Lord Rama could't give Vraja Bhakti which is what the sadhus sought after so they were granted birth in Vraja where they could develop their faith accordingly.
Prahlada has prema, but the discussion has to do with a specific type of prema, Vraja Bhakti, and that is not what Prahlada exemplifies.
I'm not sure what the Brahma Vimohana lile has to do wtih this discusion, - is there a specific point you wanted to bring out related to Vraja bhakti in that lila?
All the things you mentioned add up and don't contradict anything if that is why you mentioned them.
Swami - July 17, 2008 1:08 am
Only Krsna can give Vraja-bhakti, but Krsna is not alone. In other words, when Krsna comes to give Vraja-bhakti he comes with his eternal retinue, which includes Balarama. If Krsna did not come, neither would his elder brother. So Krsna comes to give this Vrindavana prema as Caitanya Mahaprabhu and Balarama accompanies him as Nityananda. Together they give this special prema. Nitai gives Gaura and Gaura gives prema.
Nitai appeared before Gaura but was not involved in giving prema until he met Gaura in Nadiya. Although he travelled extensively before meeting Gaura, he did not give prema during those travels. After he met Gaura he arranged for Gaura to give it to Jagai and Madhai. So Nitai gives Gaura and Garua gives prema, or Garua/Nitai (Krsna/Balarama) give this prema as an unit, but Dauji does not come to give it separately. He really has practically no separate existence from Gaura.
Yes, Balarama is an expansion of Krsna, but he is the source of all further expansions and perhaps better described as Sri Krsna's other self. Yes, he is Krsna's anga—his right arm!
As for Advaita, he is Mahavisnu. But he brought Garua here, and only after having his association could he give this prema by the grace of Garua, as is the case for the entire guru paramapara.
Citta Hari Dasa - July 17, 2008 1:55 am
Zvonimir,
One point I'd like to make is that all the lilas of Krsna or any of his avataras are eternal, and so thinking about them in the linear terms you have expressed is one way to limit your understanding of how the lila actually works. As the devotee aspires to a particular flavor of love and it matures to the point that they are eligible to enter into the lila, they will enter into the lila that corresponds with the kind of love that they have cultivated.
When the sages of Dandakaranya met Sri Rama, they could not get love of Krsna from him for only Krsna can grant Vraja bhakti, and Rama could not manifest to them as their lover because he had taken eka-patni vrata, the vow to have only one wife. Rama told them that when he appeared later (in Krsna lila) he would fulfill their desire to be his lover, and he did.
The cause of their deep desire? They chanted the Gopala-mantra and its corresponding gayatri. Also, we can surmise that at some point they had to have gotten the association of sadhus who possess that kind of love and thus they got enough sukrti to aspire after it consciously, cultivating that sacred desire and cultivating the chanting of the mantras with that desire in mind.
Who granted prema to Prahlada? Krsna.
Srimad-Bhagavatam mentions that Krsna was Prahlada's deity, not Narasingha. Krsna appeared as Narasingha out of his anger at Prahlada's mistreatment at the hands of his father and to fulfill the conditions under which Hiranyakasipu had to be killed in order to not violate Brahma's benediction to him (Hiranyakasipu). But, it was not Vraja Krsna, and thus Prahlada exemplifies santa-rasa imbued with aisvarya.
Vraja prema is not a well-known fact, and is not easily attained without the example of Sriman Mahaprabhu to guide and inform us as to the possibilities there.
Syamasundara - July 17, 2008 3:01 am
Rama could not manifest to them as their lover because he had taken eka-patni vrata, the vow to have only one wife.
I always chuckle at this reasoning, and think: if Rama had not taken that vow, would he then have become the husband of all those souls in male sage bodies??
I guess that if Surpanakha could appear as a beautiful woman, and Ravana as a sadhu, the munis had enough tejas to assume the form of women for the rest of their lives. Still...
Swami - July 17, 2008 3:35 am
The verse you (GN) are referring to explains that Krsna's yuga avataras can establish dharma (for each age), but only he can give Vraja-prema. Balarama is not a yuga avatara.
Syamasundara - July 17, 2008 4:11 am
You must mean svayam Balarama. I always wondered actually, Jayadeva Gosvami sings kesava-dhrita haladhara-rupa. Years ago they explained to me that normally at the end of Dvapara-yuga, it is Haladhara (plow-holder Balarama) who is the yuga-avatara, and like every yuga-avatara he "comes" from Ksirodakasayi Visnu. What is special about this maha-yuga is not only that dvapara yuga comes after treta yuga, but that svayam bhagavan Krsna appears on Earth, accompanied by svayam Haladhara. (And not only that! He comes again in kali-yuga as the lion-like son of Saci!! Hari bol! Sraddhavan jana, don't miss out!)
What I wonder is, what does the usual Haladhara do? Where does he take birth? Where is this all described?
Vrindaranya Dasi - July 17, 2008 5:09 am
Although Mahaprabhu says that only he can give Vraja-prema, in Cc. 1.9.34-35 he reveals a dilemma:
“I am the only gardener. How many places can I go? How many fruits can I pick and distribute? It would certainly be a very laborious task to pick the fruits and distribute them alone, and still I suspect that some would receive them and others would not." He solves this problem as follows: “Therefore I order every man within this universe to distribute the fruit of prema everywhere." (Cc. 1.9.36)
What to speak of Nityananda Prabhu himself, his devotees also heartily took up Mahaprabhu's order:
"All these branches, the devotees of Lord Nityananda Prabhu, being full of ripened fruits of love of Krsna (prema), distributed these fruits to all they met, flooding them with love of Krsna. All these devotees had unlimited strength to deliver unobstructed, unceasing love of Krsna. By their own strength they could offer anyone Krsna and love of Krsna." (Cc. 1.11.58-59)
Therefore, as Guru Maharaja mentioned, only those specially graced by Mahaprabhu can give prema; otherwise, not even a yuga-avatara can. With the grace, certainly both the source of yuga-avataras (Advaita) and the source of the source of yuga-avataras (Nityananda) give prema. Although Nityananda Prabhu is an amsa of Caitanya Mahaprabhu, everyone else is his amsa: "May Sri Nityananda Rama be the object of my constant remembrance. Sankarsana, Sesa Naga, and the Visnus who lie on the Karana Ocean, Garbha Ocean, and ocean of milk are His plenary portions and the portions of His plenary portions." (Cc. 1.1.7)
Zvonimir Tosic - July 17, 2008 5:51 am
Zvonimir,One point I'd like to make is that all the lilas of Krsna or any of his avataras are eternal, and so thinking about them in the linear terms you have expressed is one way to limit your understanding of how the lila actually works.
What I wanted is to get your nice explanation which can help me go around the arguments when talking with people and answering their questions. These are not easy things even for very interested people to understand, I admit that.
This was one of those dilemmas, with particular interest in explaining how it can be that Krishna is the presiding deity of so many great personalities from Puranic legends, spanning from Kali yuga to the time immemorial.
I was often objected with the notion that Gaudiyas try to "bend" reality and make everything Krishna-centric, which in turn produces some "illogical" results.
But I guess that's the threshold where one is left only with his or her sukriti, and as Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati would suggest, with some luck too; if they cope with the challenge, the path will become more and more wondrous.
Thank you Citta Hari.
Zvonimir Tosic - July 17, 2008 6:19 am
... What is special about this maha-yuga is not only that dvapara yuga comes after treta yuga, but that svayam bhagavan Krsna appears on Earth, accompanied by svayam Haladhara. ...
My dear Syamu, thank you for this.
Now, I'd like to continue, but please don't get me wrong -- just for the sake of nice argument let me pretend I'm someone else
Why we say this is mahayuga? Because Gaudiyas want it to be?
The drawback is, we have no recorded history older than 5000 years ago, and on what happened before we are given ideas that we may say they're legend, truth, nothing, or anything in between. And now, we're left with some beliefs about yuga passages from ancient texts and draw conclusions this must be the luckiest fraction of time ever; because it emphasises our ideas of tattva.
However, when it comes to other parts of those same texts, we sometime dismiss them as irrelevant because they don't fit into the frame of current time & circumstances. Say, we can easily dismiss caste system today, because otherwise we'll look silly and outdated to many. It's been proven.
And yet, to support our ideas about something else, we try our best to make some very imaginative and impossible to prove ideas .. quite real. For us, this is mahayuga, but for the fellow Vaisnava from some other branch, it may be just another Kali yuga.
Are we dancing here in the field of sukriti, then?
Because others can't follow us at all.
Guru-nistha Das - July 17, 2008 3:24 pm
Thank you all for the nice answers.
I found it a nice exercise to try to better understand the relationship between Krsna and Balarama. Also, it great how Sadasiva/Maha-Vishnu can't give Vraja bhakti, but as Advaita acharya in the mood of a devotee of Mahaprabhu he can! The devotees of Mahaprabhu are way more powerful than the yuga avataras. That's incredible.
Citta Hari Dasa - July 17, 2008 5:11 pm
Thank you all for the nice answers.
I found it a nice exercise to try to better understand the relationship between Krsna and Balarama. Also, it great how Sadasiva/Maha-Vishnu can't give Vraja bhakti, but as Advaita acharya in the mood of a devotee of Mahaprabhu he can! The devotees of Mahaprabhu are way more powerful than the yuga avataras. That's incredible.
Well said, Guru Nistha! Gaudiya philosophy is wonderful indeed.
Citta Hari Dasa - July 17, 2008 5:22 pm
My dear Syamu, thank you for this.Now, I'd like to continue, but please don't get me wrong -- just for the sake of nice argument let me pretend I'm someone else
Why we say this is mahayuga? Because Gaudiyas want it to be?
The drawback is, we have no recorded history older than 5000 years ago, and on what happened before we are given ideas that we may say they're legend, truth, nothing, or anything in between. And now, we're left with some beliefs about yuga passages from ancient texts and draw conclusions this must be the luckiest fraction of time ever; because it emphasises our ideas of tattva.
However, when it comes to other parts of those same texts, we sometime dismiss them as irrelevant because they don't fit into the frame of current time & circumstances. Say, we can easily dismiss caste system today, because otherwise we'll look silly and outdated to many. It's been proven.
And yet, to support our ideas about something else, we try our best to make some very imaginative and impossible to prove ideas .. quite real. For us, this is mahayuga, but for the fellow Vaisnava from some other branch, it may be just another Kali yuga.
Are we dancing here in the field of sukriti, then?
Because others can't follow us at all.
More mercy than sukrti--we have been graced with coming in contact with a devotee of Mahaprabhu, and have heard of the conception of Vraja-bhakti as articulated by the Goswamis. It is true that not everyone can follow us, since their faith lies elsewhere. And it is faith that makes us interpret the scriptures in a particular way. Now, of course, we Gaudiyas have our arguments that our interpretation is the most chaste to the spirit of the texts, but obviously not everyone agrees with us. So be it. We still have the Bengali sweets to bring to the market, and those who are interested in sweetness will find us.
Swami - July 17, 2008 7:44 pm
My dear Syamu, thank you for this.Now, I'd like to continue, but please don't get me wrong -- just for the sake of nice argument let me pretend I'm someone else
Why we say this is mahayuga? Because Gaudiyas want it to be?
I am not familiar with the term maha-yuga, but this Kali-yuga is special for a number of reasons.
dvapare samanuprapte
trtiye yuga-paryaye
jatah parasarad yogi
vasavyam kalaya hareh
"Suta Gosvami said: When the second millennium overlapped the third, the great sage [Vyasadeva] was born to Parasara in the womb of Satyavati, the daughter of Vasu." (SB 1.4.14)
This irregularity occurs once in the day of Brahma and corresponds with Sri Krsna's appearance at the end of the Dvapara yuga (during the sandhyam). Then Krsna appears in the subsequent Kali-yuga as Mahaprabhu for the purpose of fulfilling his unfulfilled ambitions in his Dvarapa-yuga appearance. So at least according to sastra (Srimad Bhagavatam) this is a special time, a special Kali-yuga.
Syamasundara - July 17, 2008 10:31 pm
By maha-yuga I meant one cycle of Satya (or Krta), Dvapara, Treta and Kali. I am pretty sure this is Prabhupada's terminology. But there is a bit of a controversy on the actual durations of yugas, kalpas, manvantaras, etc. The word yuga in Sanskrit means either a yuga the way we think of it, or a lustrum (5 years). I remember it being something else (12 seconds, minutes, years... don't remember), but the dictionary doesn't mention it.
The 28th maha-yuga is the one occurrence in the day of Brahma when Krsna himself appears, together with the "scheduled" avatar, Baladeva, who in that maha-yuga is also Balarama himself.
Guru Maharaja,
you seemed to say that Mahaprabhu also always appears in the following kali-yuga. I thought his appearance was unprecedented in a more absolute sense.
And I still have a lot of questions about Gaura Narayana. He brings nama-sankirtana, though not prema-sankirtana, but does he come every kali-yuga? Why is the Lord known as tri-yuga?
Syamasundara - July 17, 2008 11:02 pm
I was often objected with the notion that Gaudiyas try to "bend" reality and make everything Krishna-centric, which in turn produces some "illogical" results.
Ohhhh... Anybody can say anything. I say that reality IS Krsna-centric, and any other conception of reality is bent, warped and illogical. How's that? And there is so much philosophy to back it up. Then again, it's just philosophy, words, but once it's put into practice, people's lives change.
The reality your hypothetic opponent is talking about, with its linear time and concrete feeling to it, is constantly being redefined. Now it turns out that that reality is nothing but condensed light. Mass is based on atoms, and there is so much void between the constituents of an atom, which are themselves some elusive waves of energy. Nothing concrete whatsoever. Meanwhile the Bhagavatam and other texts have been talking about this energy, its nature, expressions and source since forever, in a language that sounds allegorical to many, but most of all, the people embracing the Bhagavatam and its message would become happy many centuries ago, when accepting certain descriptions was an act of faith, as they do now, that science seems to lean toward consciousness.
Have you ever heard GM talk about experiential spirituality?
The world your hypothetic opponents are talking about is made of definitions, that are destined to bounce within the vault of the material creation. We pierce that vault with experience and expression. Well, a great deal of mercy, too.
I may be a bad practitioner, but I don't know what life is without Krsna anymore. I don't know how, say, my housemates can lead their existence, I don't know if there is something material that they can be absorbed so much in, that their feelings get enhanced, their reasoning seems so fulfilled and fulfilling, their life seems perfect and most fortunate despite the difficulties, and everything is or can be harmonized.
Even if this Krsna consciousness thing is but the fruit of some pretty darn clever minds who thought it all out for, I don't know, the good of humankind, I'd still prefer this outlook and relative experience.
What do your opponents gain in terms of happiness from trying to make sense of everything according to a certain set of parameters that is accepted at present?
And then they die.
Swami - July 18, 2008 12:51 am
By maha-yuga I meant one cycle of Satya (or Krta), Dvapara, Treta and Kali. I am pretty sure this is Prabhupada's terminology. But there is a bit of a controversy on the actual durations of yugas, kalpas, manvantaras, etc. The word yuga in Sanskrit means either a yuga the way we think of it, or a lustrum (5 years). I remember it being something else (12 seconds, minutes, years... don't remember), but the dictionary doesn't mention it.
The 28th maha-yuga is the one occurrence in the day of Brahma when Krsna himself appears, together with the "scheduled" avatar, Baladeva, who in that maha-yuga is also Balarama himself.
Guru Maharaja,
you seemed to say that Mahaprabhu also always appears in the following kali-yuga. I thought his appearance was unprecedented in a more absolute sense.
And I still have a lot of questions about Gaura Narayana. He brings nama-sankirtana, though not prema-sankirtana, but does he come every kali-yuga? Why is the Lord known as tri-yuga?
Yes, the teaching is that Mahaprabhu comes in the kali-yuga following Krsna's appearance. The idea that Gaura Narayana comes in every other kali-yuga does seem to contradict his name, Tri-yuga, unless of course he also hides himself as a devotee and thus ovetly hides himself. To be honest, all these never ending yuga cycles are too much to keep up with--too long. As far as I know, scripture does not really say much about past yuga cycles or even past yugas in this cycle. It's all about now, as it should be. And now is long enough--beginning some 5000 years ago. In contemporary preaching I would not stress the yuga cycles. Although I have written about it here:
http://www.swami.org/pages/sanga/2001/2001_17.php
It is an interesting topic. Think about it in terms of contemporary thought.
Syamasundara - July 18, 2008 1:31 am
Ah, how masterful, I had no recollection of that Sanga whatsoever. It'd be interesting to go back and start reading them again. Half of the discussions here wouldn't take place.
Swami - July 18, 2008 1:56 am
Ah, how masterful, I had no recollection of that Sanga whatsoever. It'd be interesting to go back and start reading them again. Half of the discussions here wouldn't take place.
There is probably one on Gaura Narayana also.
But regarding the one above about yugas, I believe this merits more discussion. Then again one need not make the yuga cycles central to their explanation of GV. Gaura Vijaya?
Syamasundara - July 18, 2008 2:38 am
There is probably one on Gaura Narayana also.
Yes, either here or on Sanga. By the way, I'd like to reiterate to those competent, that the search engine on this forum could improve a lot.
But regarding the one above about yugas, I believe this merits more discussion. Then again one need not make the yuga cycles central to their explanation of GV. Gaura Vijaya?
I can't understand your position still. In my personal case, I don't see myself going on a crusade to make someone accept the idea and logistics of the Vedic ages, as I wouldn't do it for Varnashrama dharma (in the way other devotees do), or pretty much anything. I just see where the person is at and try to make them see how Krsna is sweet. Not like I can really talk about Krsna to anybody here in Escondido; they're all simple, working people, and I don't mingle with anybody but my abusive Indian coworkers and my just-above-white-trash housemates
Can't wait to see my family next week.
What would you like to be discussed more? The contrast between the linear conception and the cyclic one? How we may want to have people reconsider things, especially the idea that everything "revolves" around consciousness, without having to hammer on all those durations and names and facts about yugas?
Swami - July 21, 2008 2:11 am
Evolution has been conceived as a linear process of change toward a state of complexity. However, Darwin understood that evolution does not always move toward complexity, and because we don't notice when evolution decreases complexity as readily as we notice when complexity is increased we tend to think of it as moving in a line of ever increasing complexity.
Extinctions and peaks in biological complexity appear to cycle over time. While over long time periods some species start out in simple form and evolve slowly towards complexity as they adapt to their changing environment, at other times periods of extinction reduce the complexity of life forms.
This same pattern can be seen throughout science as a whole. Patterns that were once viewed as linear cause and effect relationships are now being seen as cyclical patterns of change.
Cyclical changes in nature are abundant and built into nature. Many natural phenomena only appear at first glance to behave in a linear manner when we examine an isolated part of their life cycle. Some apparently linear phenomena may actually be parts of more comprehensive cyclical phenomena.
I have read that in almost every field of science a cyclical reality is presenting itself. As an example certain chemicals in the brain and in the other bodily systems are said to appear to cycle through stages of greater and lesser concentration, and animal and plant populations sometimes cycle through periods of greater and lesser density.
This is an interesting subject. Western civilization has been proceeding with a linear worldview and in doing so dismissing every other pre modern outlook, all of which were cyclical including Gaudiya Vaisnavism. One question is whether or not science based on a cyclical model is possible, and if so, what would it look like? Another, one that many are asking, is how off course science has taken humanity in terms of a meaningful life on all levels however successful it has been on one level.
Gaura-Vijaya Das - July 21, 2008 3:10 am
There is probably one on Gaura Narayana also.
But regarding the one above about yugas, I believe this merits more discussion. Then again one need not make the yuga cycles central to their explanation of GV. Gaura Vijaya?
I think that since there is no agreed version of ancient Vedic history and everybody has a different take on it-- to be explicitly forthright about exact dates in previous yuga cycles is a great problem in contemporary preaching. When we insist that this is the yuga which is special and most people in previous yuga cycles and also outside this earthly system don't have access to the Vraja krsna, it parallels a kind of anthropocentric view(though this view can be true krsna can do anything). Most of the scripture doesn't directly talk in detail about previous yuga cycles and the incidents that happened therein, though the acaryas do explain some contradictions in scripture through that logic.
Instead we can philosophically explain how Vraja krsna is the synthesis of all contradictions and how the most complete worldview comes through adavya jnana tattva of GV. That can be done through a good understanding of other spiritual paths. And then we can explain the path enlisted by the Gosvamis to practice and achieve the state of prema. I was also thinking about focusing more and more on sikshastakam for explaining the progression in devotion rather than keeping on describing all the vedic details of great eras which happened in the past. Portraying a too idealist view of the ancient Vedic view which devotees do doesn't hold ground when we find that details from previous ages are very contrary to acceptable norms right now. Like how GM explains, these incidents in scriptures are like movies out of histories which are useful to us. And these lilas are being visualized in the heart of Vyasa who is beyond the three modes and we want to move in that experience too and visualize and participate in the lila which is more of value than the world of our material desire. So our emphasis can be more about moving to that plane of spiritual experience rather than nagging on the historical correctness of the details of all yuga cycles and debating about that. Sambandha, abhideya(emphasizing the path of the Gosvamis) and prayojana have to be emphasized strongly.
I especially liked the last blog GM wrote about cosmos and the psyche; that is very contemporary. Again this is just my input on this matter which is not the only one by any means.
PS:- When I gave an example to a devotee(he is like a prabhupada disciple loyalist; he cannot make a mistake theory) how SP made a mistake in his narration of Ramayana ( SP made mistakes in recalling the names of Dasaratha's wives), he said either these may have happened in some other yuga cycle or some other universe. This incident was beside the point but I was just thinking how easy it is use yuga cycles and parallel universes to explain away any incident.
Gaura-Vijaya Das - July 21, 2008 3:13 am
Evolution has been conceived as a linear process of change toward a state of complexity. However, Darwin understood that evolution does not always move toward complexity, and because we don't notice when evolution decreases complexity as readily as we notice when complexity is increased we tend to think of it as moving in a line of ever increasing complexity.
Extinctions and peaks in biological complexity appear to cycle over time. While over long time periods some species start out in simple form and evolve slowly towards complexity as they adapt to their changing environment, at other times periods of extinction reduce the complexity of life forms.
This same pattern can be seen throughout science as a whole. Patterns that were once viewed as linear cause and effect relationships are now being seen as cyclical patterns of change.
Cyclical changes in nature are abundant and built into nature. Many natural phenomena only appear at first glance to behave in a linear manner when we examine an isolated part of their life cycle. Some apparently linear phenomena may actually be parts of more comprehensive cyclical phenomena.
I have read that in almost every field of science a cyclical reality is presenting itself. As an example certain chemicals in the brain and in the other bodily systems are said to appear to cycle through stages of greater and lesser concentration, and animal and plant populations sometimes cycle through periods of greater and lesser density.
This is an interesting subject. Western civilization has been proceeding with a linear worldview and in doing so dismissing every other pre modern outlook, all of which were cyclical including Gaudiya Vaisnavism. One question is whether or not science based on a cyclical model is possible, and if so, what would it look like? Another, one that many are asking, is how off course science has taken humanity in terms of a meaningful life on all levels however successful it has been on one level.
Actually some credence to the view that science is cyclical can be drawn from a book " Structures of scientific revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn who talks about paradigm shifts in science. The term paradigm shift is attributed to Kuhn as far as I know. It is a brief book and was pretty well received.
Swami - July 21, 2008 3:47 am
In the 19th century Nietzsche's criticism of Christian dogmas brought back the idea of the eternal cycle to Western discussion. These ideas were further developed by Oswald Spengler in his study The Decline of the West (1918-1922).
Babhru Das - July 21, 2008 4:52 am
Actually some credence to the view that science is cyclical can be drawn from a book " Structures of scientific revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn who talks about paradigm shifts in science. The term paradigm shift is attributed to Kuhn as far as I know. It is a brief book and was pretty well received.
Kuhn's book is a big part in the development of postmodern movements, and its influence reaches far beyond science. Although it has been a long time since I read it, I remember that it influenced the way social sciences are done, as well as rhetoric and composition studies, which was my field. Postmodern modes of thinking have opened the thoughtful world to all sorts of approaches to many endeavors, including things like Schumacher's Buddhist economics and other such stuff. Postmodernism in its different forms has been useful in opening things up, but many thoughtful folks have found it lacking in many ways.
Among others who changed many fields was Kenneth Burke, whose ideas also influenced many fields of study. He was primarily a literary critic and aesthetician, I suppose, but social scientists also many of his contributions useful.
Citta Hari Dasa - July 21, 2008 5:15 pm
One question is whether or not science based on a cyclical model is possible, and if so, what would it look like? Another, one that many are asking, is how off course science has taken humanity in terms of a meaningful life on all levels however successful it has been on one level.
Science has proven itself adaptable to change, albeit within its own paradigm (i.e.; the empirical model). Seems though that the more they look at nature and try to figure it out they will have to ultimately embrace the fact that cycles are everywhere and then find ways to express that idea through mathematics. In fact it's already been done: chaos theory and fractal geometry do it to some extent, while Pythagorean thought, The Fibonacci spiral, golden mean, etc. (what in some circles is called "Sacred Geometry" also do it.
Regarding the second question I think that the problem is not with science per se, rather the mistake has been to try to apply science to all levels and expect it to provide ultimate meaning to humanity.
Since that meaning lies in the realm of consciousness, science has a problem, because as we have seen is not so easy to prove the existence of conscious using the empirical model. Funny thing, though--the method eventuall reveals consciousness inferentially: it is admitted that at the subatomic level the outcome of any experiment is influenced by the act of observing the experiment (ask a particle question, get a particle answer; ask a wave question, get a wave answer). Consciousness is that which cannot be denied--and there we are at Vedanta: Gaudiya Vedanta.
Citta Hari Dasa - July 21, 2008 5:40 pm
I was also thinking about focusing more and more on sikshastakam for explaining the progression in devotion rather than keeping on describing all the vedic details of great eras which happened in the past.
Some excellent thoughts Gaura Vijaya. Interestingly, I've also been thinking that the Siksastakam is the perfect book to explain the progression of bhakti--the entirety of Mahaprabhu's nama-dharma is there, in a condensed form that is as essential an expression of the path of Gaudiya Vedanta/Vraja-bhakti as can be found. We could easily say that all of their books are explanations of Siksastakam--but that's another discussion.
On the other side, it seems to me that the some of the details in the Bhagavatam seem to cloud the issue. This is no fault of the book, it's just how the Bhagavatam looks when it is expressed in the Puranic format. In today's world, and in the world it looks like the present will evolve into, I think it's safe to say that to focus on such "Vedic" details is a clear ticket to irrelevancy, especially since there is a tendency for those who do so to confuse the details with the essence.
Syamasundara - July 21, 2008 8:38 pm
Cyclical changes in nature are abundant and built into nature. Many natural phenomena only appear at first glance to behave in a linear manner when we examine an isolated part of their life cycle. Some apparently linear phenomena may actually be parts of more comprehensive cyclical phenomena.
I have read that in almost every field of science a cyclical reality is presenting itself. As an example certain chemicals in the brain and in the other bodily systems are said to appear to cycle through stages of greater and lesser concentration, and animal and plant populations sometimes cycle through periods of greater and lesser density.
This is an interesting subject. Western civilization has been proceeding with a linear worldview and in doing so dismissing every other pre modern outlook, all of which were cyclical including Gaudiya Vaisnavism. One question is whether or not science based on a cyclical model is possible, and if so, what would it look like? Another, one that many are asking, is how off course science has taken humanity in terms of a meaningful life on all levels however successful it has been on one level.
We are way out of topic by now, but we should probably open another thread, as sacred geometry is a very interesting topic, that can bring about incredible realizations.
I don't mean to sound like a Celtic freak, but I believe the spiral would be the perfect solution to the dilemma between linear and circular.
If it wasn't obvious enough, I'll try to explain what I realized two years ago.
A spiral has the power to represent both the infinitesimal and the infinite. According to the consciousness of the viewer, that same esoteric image can be interpreted as spiraling in and down toward the tight world of "me and mine", or as spiraling up out toward the infinite: vaikuntha.
The up and down valence to a spiral is my tridimensional and gaudiya... spin to it, in that I envisioned a point within infinity in which the spiral, while still spinning in the same sense and upward, narrows back in toward the yugala-kisora.
What happened in 2006 is that I was camping in my sister's living room, no job on the horizon, a shaky love relationship on the other side of the Atlantic. I was chanting my rounds in the afternoon, but really just meditatin on me, me, me, my problems, my situations, my job, my lover. All these things were orbiting around me like a zodiac, and I was suffocating. That's when I first had the sensation of things going in a circle that got narrower and narrower. So, I tried to reverse it, I looked out on the balcony, I became aware of my neighborhood, of all the other people and their situations. I started to see the bigger picture, as GM likes to say. Gradually my anxiety became lesser and lesser, and I started to think in more cosmic and transcendental terms.
If we were to walk along a spiral, we would proceed in a linear way, putting one foot in front of the other, but the circular element would be there as well. Say we start in the center of Paris, in our spiraling out we would walk right in front of the Arch of Triumph, the next round under it, the next one past it, and so forth. Similarly, if we are progressing in life, the same obstacles may present themselves over and over, but we would approach them every time from a different angle.
In this outlook, the linear theory seems quite faulty, and the circle one, quite static.
After all, it's summer yet again, but this summer is not exactly like all the previous ones. I feel the Vedic thinkers, or whoever, hadn't missed the relevance of spirals (spirals can be found in all cultures), still they adopted the image of a cakra for concision. Some wheels just spin on their hubs, and some others do that and roll forward.
By the way, the kundalini sakti spirals upward while making its way through the cakras. The DNA chain has the same shape, hmmm 
As far as GM's observations that I quoted above, they can be represented simply by a wavy line, because, again, going from down back to up, doesn't necessarily imply that we are back to where we started, which is what happens in a circumference. As we know, everything vibrates in this fickle world: everything has its wave length.
At the same time, if we cut a sinusoid (the wavy line that represents a frequency) along the middle, we'd see nothing but shifted half-circles (kinda); just like every triangle is considered as half a rectangle when it comes to calculating its surface, similarly there may be a relationship between a circular line and a sinusoidal one. So again, by talking about circles, the Vedas were just being concise, which wouldn't surprise me.
I guess the bottom line is that we won't come out it if we try to see the world as either linear or circular. A more dynamic and harmonizing vision is required. Big surprise.
For those who were interested in the subject of sacred geometry, there is a lot out there, between the web and youtube, if you search: vastu sastra, Fibonacci numbers, golden section, etc.
Gaura-Vijaya Das - July 21, 2008 11:51 pm
We are way out of topic by now, but we should probably open another thread, as sacred geometry is a very interesting topic, that can bring about incredible realizations.
I don't mean to sound like a Celtic freak, but I believe the spiral would be the perfect solution to the dilemma between linear and circular.
If it wasn't obvious enough, I'll try to explain what I realized two years ago.
A spiral has the power to represent both the infinitesimal and the infinite. According to the consciousness of the viewer, that same esoteric image can be interpreted as spiraling in and down toward the tight world of "me and mine", or as spiraling up out toward the infinite: vaikuntha.
The up and down valence to a spiral is my tridimensional and gaudiya... spin to it, in that I envisioned a point within infinity in which the spiral, while still spinning in the same sense and upward, narrows back in toward the yugala-kisora.
What happened in 2006 is that I was camping in my sister's living room, no job on the horizon, a shaky love relationship on the other side of the Atlantic. I was chanting my rounds in the afternoon, but really just meditatin on me, me, me, my problems, my situations, my job, my lover. All these things were orbiting around me like a zodiac, and I was suffocating. That's when I first had the sensation of things going in a circle that got narrower and narrower. So, I tried to reverse it, I looked out on the balcony, I became aware of my neighborhood, of all the other people and their situations. I started to see the bigger picture, as GM likes to say. Gradually my anxiety became lesser and lesser, and I started to think in more cosmic and transcendental terms.
If we were to walk along a spiral, we would proceed in a linear way, putting one foot in front of the other, but the circular element would be there as well. Say we start in the center of Paris, in our spiraling out we would walk right in front of the Arch of Triumph, the next round under it, the next one past it, and so forth. Similarly, if we are progressing in life, the same obstacles may present themselves over and over, but we would approach them every time from a different angle.
In this outlook, the linear theory seems quite faulty, and the circle one, quite static.
After all, it's summer yet again, but this summer is not exactly like all the previous ones. I feel the Vedic thinkers, or whoever, hadn't missed the relevance of spirals (spirals can be found in all cultures), still they adopted the image of a cakra for concision. Some wheels just spin on their hubs, and some others do that and roll forward.
By the way, the kundalini sakti spirals upward while making its way through the cakras. The DNA chain has the same shape, hmmm
As far as GM's observations that I quoted above, they can be represented simply by a wavy line, because, again, going from down back to up, doesn't necessarily imply that we are back to where we started, which is what happens in a circumference. As we know, everything vibrates in this fickle world: everything has its wave length.
At the same time, if we cut a sinusoid (the wavy line that represents a frequency) along the middle, we'd see nothing but shifted half-circles (kinda); just like every triangle is considered as half a rectangle when it comes to calculating its surface, similarly there may be a relationship between a circular line and a sinusoidal one. So again, by talking about circles, the Vedas were just being concise, which wouldn't surprise me.
I guess the bottom line is that we won't come out it if we try to see the world as either linear or circular. A more dynamic and harmonizing vision is required. Big surprise.
For those who were interested in the subject of sacred geometry, there is a lot out there, between the web and youtube, if you search: vastu sastra, Fibonacci numbers, golden section, etc.
Yes cyclical is simplistic and krsna is not simplistic. His movement or the movement of love is like a snake like SSM points out. Thesis, antithesis and synthesis and then a new thesis, antithesis and synthesis; it is just a crooked path and not a repititive one . If you want to catch krsna somewhere he changes his course then you go there and again he changes course. It is ever expanding fun as "vilasa" or pure joy is behind every action.
Gaura-Vijaya Das - July 21, 2008 11:59 pm
So the focus of our life is to align ourselves with a roller coaster ride of krsna's play rather than move according to the roller coasters of our material desire. Or else our small roller coaster will be toppled sooner than later by krsna's roller coaster. (I am not distinguishing between mahavisnu and krsna here and considering that all lilas ultimately have their source is krsna; it is correct according to tattva)
Guru-nistha Das - July 22, 2008 1:38 am
It's interesting to think that the circularity is not only confined to the material experience, but is found in the experience of the rasikas too, when they describe the lila. There's the spring rasa dance and then the autumn one, Krsna wakes up and goes to sleep (the little that he sleeps, anyway) and so on.. And all the points of the circle are present at the same time, past, present and future come together. That's how I've understood it when Guru Maharaja explains the nature of the lila.
It's definitely easier to think of how past, present and the future can all come together, if one thinks of reality in a cyclical rather than a linear way. Like GM pointed out in his previous post, it's easier to think of things in a linear way if you only concentrate on details and the "small picture" of things. Although the lila is inconceivable to the conditioned mind, I still feel that seeing things in cyclical terms rather than linear is conducive to developing one's conceptual grasp on bhakti and the nature of advaya jnana.
Swami - July 22, 2008 3:24 am
I would like to know what the virtues of a linear worldview are from the standpoint of modern science. Surely this way of looking at nature must have enabled science to accomplish may things. Could they have accomplished them with a cyclical worldview? In other words there must be a fair amount scientific progress derived from this outlook that keeps many intellectuals thinking that cyclical time, etc, is a primitive understanding. No? Surely their conviction must be based on something more than the Biblical position that modern science was ushered in by. Apparently this linear outlook is very important to Christians, being Biblically based they feel it distinguishes their faith from that of all other pagans.primitives, etc.
Gaura-Vijaya Das - July 22, 2008 6:09 am
There is a book called Idea of Progress Since the Renaissance (Major issues in history). If anyone wants to buy it is cheap http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/047.../bestbookbuys00.
A discussion about that is given by http://learning.berkeley.edu/cipolat/PDF/I...aries/Wagar.pdf
GM, let me know if you want a copy after going through the pdf file.
This is also a very good and detailed article on the idea of progress.http://www.disf.org/en/Voci/97.asp
The main thing is that most of the western world sees that there is increase in life expectancy, hygiene, medical development and technological sophistication one hand and women's rights, rights for blacks, better understanding of issues like homosexuality on the other hand. When we compare to any era of Christian history this time is much better. Devotees say that there are too many wars now so Kali yuga is progressing but there were even more cases of oppression during the Christian era. I think devotees understand kali yuga in isolation to be a time of complete linear regression and it puts that perspective at loggerheads with the concept of linear progress. The cycles according to a very naive understanding go in linear regression and degradation and then start from perfection(satya yuga) with very few blips in between. But I think reality is quite complex. Also the concept of history which Hegel or Marx saw as progressive doesn't seem to be working with postmodern times. Hegel once said that a civilization can't become conscious of itself and can't recognize its own significance until it's so mature that it's approaching its own death. But it maybe due to the fact that postmodern time is a transit time waiting for something to give in . Next 50 years will be very interesting part of history and it will be full of excitement.
Gaura-Vijaya Das - July 22, 2008 6:22 am
Concept of progress was formally incorporated into thought by Compte. It is central to positivism as a philosophy. Karl Popper stand is that science is an endeavor which is falsifiable and thus different from metaphysics or religion but he denied that it can offer complete positive understanding. His understanding is accepted by most scientists of current era atleast in public view. Most scientist follow this or positivist doctrine.Stephen Hawkins also toes the line of Popper.
Citta Hari Dasa - July 22, 2008 3:09 pm
Concept of progress was formally incorporated into thought by Compte. It is central to positivism as a philosophy. Karl Popper stand is that science is an endeavor which is falsifiable and thus different from metaphysics or religion but he denied that it can offer complete positive understanding. His understanding is accepted by most scientists of current era atleast in public view. Most scientist follow this or positivist doctrine.Stephen Hawkins also toes the line of Popper.
If I read this correctly there's a dichotomy in the scientific community between the positivists who only accept evidence gathered through the strict scientific method, and those who say that such evidence can't be relied upon, and that some big names like Hawking subscribe to the latter view. That's very interesting--who knows, they might even lean toward admitting consciousness some day.
Gaura-Vijaya Das - July 22, 2008 4:18 pm
They just believe in a weak form of positivism: that which says that science is the only thing which is atleast falsifiable.Falsifiable means that a scientific proposition can be tested for its incorrectness: they may not be able to determine whether it will be correct all the time in the future but it is subject to tests of falsifiability. But there is no such test for religious beliefs.
Swami - July 22, 2008 4:29 pm
They just believe in a weak form of positivism: that which says that science is the only thing which is atleast falsifiable.Falsifiable means that a scientific proposition can be tested for its incorrectness: they may not be able to determine whether it will be correct all the time in the future but it is subject to tests of falsifiability. But there is no such test for religious beliefs.
As it should be!
Gaura-Vijaya Das - July 22, 2008 4:42 pm
As it should be!
GM, you mean that the status quo is alright according to you: that the religious beliefs are not falsifiable and science is. Certainly then science has a upper hand generally when compared to fundamentalist representations of religion. All that most strong opponents of religions like Dawkins and Hitchens have done is reword bertrand russell who has the most intellectually stimulating arguments against christianity or any religion. "why I am not a christian" can be read here http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html and devotees can do well to read it to know the sophisticated arguments against religion.
Gaura-Vijaya Das - July 22, 2008 4:48 pm
And another thing which I liked wasthe debate between copleston(renowned christian philosopher) and russell. http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p20.htm
Pretty good!!
Swami - July 22, 2008 5:08 pm
GM, you mean that the status quo is alright according to you: that the religious beliefs are not falsifiable and science is. Certainly then science has a upper hand generally when compared to fundamentalist representations of religion. All that most strong opponents of religions like Dawkins and Hitchens have done is reword bertrand russell who has the most intellectually stimulating arguments against christianity or any religion. "why I am not a christian" can be read here http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html and devotees can do well to read it to know the sophisticated arguments against religion.
I meant that I do not believe that God should be subject to our empirical proof, and that to insist upon such is unreasonable. I look forward to reading the articles you have posted.
Gaura-Vijaya Das - July 22, 2008 11:43 pm
It is very interesting that russell questions the idea of a beginning of creation. The cyclical idea can do justice to that.
But because of some evidence for the big bang, it is used for christians for their beginning of creation theory. Though there are some scientists who have proposed the cyclical model like Paul Steinhart it is hard to verify these results empirically. Regarding whether universe is cyclical or not it is hard to say even by science.
http://www.physics.princeton.edu/~steinh/ Steinhart is pretty solid in his foundations so if interested you can check his webpage for his understanding and theory of cyclical universe.
This is an interesting article on why Pope supports Big Bang and how some scientists are saying that big bang is just a part of infinite cycles of expansion and contraction. http://www.physics.princeton.edu/~steinh/Discover0204.pdf
Obviously we can use this theory to just corroborate our cyclical understanding but the fact remains that there is some intellectual thought which can be put even into cyclical universe paradigm and it is not just a primitive understanding of no value.
Swami - July 24, 2008 12:15 am
It is very interesting that russell questions the idea of a beginning of creation. The cyclical idea can do justice to that.But because of some evidence for the big bang, it is used for christians for their beginning of creation theory. Though there are some scientists who have proposed the cyclical model like Paul Steinhart it is hard to verify these results empirically. Regarding whether universe is cyclical or not it is hard to say even by science.
http://www.physics.princeton.edu/~steinh/ Steinhart is pretty solid in his foundations so if interested you can check his webpage for his understanding and theory of cyclical universe.
This is an interesting article on why Pope supports Big Bang and how some scientists are saying that big bang is just a part of infinite cycles of expansion and contraction. http://www.physics.princeton.edu/~steinh/Discover0204.pdf
Obviously we can use this theory to just corroborate our cyclical understanding but the fact remains that there is some intellectual thought which can be put even into cyclical universe paradigm and it is not just a primitive understanding of no value.
I think you are catching my drift here. While it may not be important and perhaps even counterproductive to try to prove the yuga cycles and their exact dates, lengths, etc., it is useful to demonstrate that the cyclical worldview need not be primitive. Indeed it may be more correct and useful. This cyclical worldview encompasses more than one might realize at first. It is a new way for many of thinking about life for most people, one that even many devotees do not think within. If they did, it would help them in their spiritual practice. I believe this worldview helps one to leave things alone and in an appropriate way suitable for spiritual progress tempers the drive for material progress. It also helps to focus one on the here and now.
Citta Hari Dasa - July 24, 2008 7:36 am
I think you are catching my drift here. While it may not be important and perhaps even counterproductive to try to prove the yuga cycles and their exact dates, lengths, etc., it is useful to demonstrate that the cyclical worldview need not be primitive. Indeed it may be more correct and useful. This cyclical worldview encompasses more than one might realize at first. It is a new way for many of thinking about life for most people, one that even many devotees do not think within. If they did, it would help them in their spiritual practice. I believe this worldview helps one to leave things alone and in an appropriate way suitable for spiritual progress tempers the drive for material progress. It also helps to focus one on the here and now.
Guru Maharaja, I agree that to think in cyclical terms is greatly beneficial; recognition of the cyclical nature of life seems to me to be one of the defining qualities of wisdom. In Eastern thought, Taoism in particular, this way of thinking is far from primitive; it is based on direct observation of nature, which as we know is an infinitely complex system that cannot be fully expressed by simplistic theories--daiva sakti.
One point perhaps worth considering is that when discussing Eastern and Western thought, even though Western thought has tended to be much more linear I think it would be a mistake to assume that Eastern thought is just its opposite, i.e., primarily cyclical. In Taoism for example both linear and cyclical aspects are understood to be essential components of the whole, where the linear worldview would be considered yang relative to the yin cyclical worldview, and vice versa. Both yin and yang together comprise the Tao, and there is no meaning to one without the other; they define and complete each other. Simple, yet sophisticated. Maybe there are existing Western scientific theories that could be used to demonstrate how the two are harmonious and necessary aspects of the one dynamic universe (or that already express that harmony)?
At any rate, as usual it's not an either/or situation--it's both. If one is looking to prove one or the other it might be worthwhile to point out that whether we see the linearity or cyclical nature of the universe depends on the lens we're viewing it through (again, ask a particle question. . .).
Gaura-Vijaya Das - July 24, 2008 2:18 pm
One more thing is that the reality is not circular in the sense that everything is being repeated exactly all the time. Otherwise there is no play in krsna's lila; it is just repetitive.
Citta Hari Dasa - July 24, 2008 2:51 pm
One more thing is that the reality is not circular in the sense that everything is being repeated exactly all the time. Otherwise there is no play in krsna's lila; it is just repetitive.
Exactly, which is why a spiral is a better way to express it: cyclical, but evolving at the same time.
Bhrigu - July 24, 2008 6:15 pm
How do you mean that a cyclical view of time helps us live "here and now", Guru Maharaja? I'm asking because that is one traditional argument against it -- only if we beieve that this life here is all we have got will we become serious about doing something valuable with it.
Swami - July 24, 2008 9:04 pm
How do you mean that a cyclical view of time helps us live "here and now", Guru Maharaja? I'm asking because that is one traditional argument against it -- only if we beieve that this life here is all we have got will we become serious about doing something valuable with it.
Well from the Christian viewpoint this world ends and at the end some go to heaven others to hell. So one is living here only for the future. So you can litter as you like. The focus is there, not here. Our focus in one sense is "really being here," which amounts to being there. Yes, we want to leave samsara and go to Goloka, but this involves a change of consciousness that has us looking at the natural world not as something to exploit or run away from.
Madan Gopal Das - July 25, 2008 1:29 am
How do you mean that a cyclical view of time helps us live "here and now", Guru Maharaja?
I think this is a really good question. Guru Maharaj's answer identifies the modern consequence of short sighted linear thinking epitomized by the anti-green fundamentalist Christian world view. The here and now doesn't matter. Yet I also understand how despite having a superficial understanding of cyclical worldview and perspective on time, devotees often fall prey to the same twisted result of linear thinking in their spiritual pursuit. Sometimes the pursuit of the goal leaves one out of touch with the present.
Traditionally I think the argument against the cyclical view was that people such as Hindu's with their belief in cyclic based concepts like reincarnation would become "lazy" in their spiritual pursuit because they can take their time to achieve perfection; there is no pressure to perfect oneself in one life because there are many more to come. I can see the point of this argument, but have a different view on the "spiritual urgency" argument.
I see that if time is repeating itself, from the cycle of minutes and hours, to the morning, mid-day, evening routine, to the repetition of the seasons, we are actually given the opportunity to focus and make significant sustained progress that while possibly slower may be more secure. We are reminded of our conditioned state and the repetitive nature of our anarthas. I think about how the day is sometimes looked at as a miniature lifetime. In one day from waking (birth) to sleeping (death) we have the opportunity of a lifetime to commit to our spiritual practice, to make a world of change, to get serious, etc. If we fall short we have another grand opportunity in the next day. In this way life is repeating itself, but we can focus in the moment, live in the "here and now", BE HERE NOW, SLOW DOWN and yet move, progress from the present with steadiness. While being constantly reminded of the time factor and its destructive effect on all that is material, we can also catch a glimpse of our transcendence to it and begin to live in a world that is timeless.
Thakur Bhaktivinoda:Forget the past that sleeps, and ne'er
The future dream at all,
But act in times that are with thee
And progress thee shall call
Syamasundara - July 25, 2008 6:53 pm
Exactly, which is why a spiral is a better way to express it: cyclical, but evolving at the same time.
Told ya! 
Syamasundara - July 25, 2008 7:01 pm
Traditionally I think the argument against the cyclical view was that people such as Hindu's with their belief in cyclic based concepts like reincarnation would become "lazy" in their spiritual pursuit because they can take their time to achieve perfection; there is no pressure to perfect oneself in one life because there are many more to come. I can see the point of this argument, but have a different view on the "spiritual urgency" argument.
You know, I heard that argument a couple of times, and I used to think they had a point of sort, but at the same time, take us: how many lifetimes do we want after this? Granted, SP's emphasis is a little different that the average Hindu one, but the basis and source are the same.
At the same time, we know that despite our efforts, we may not make it in time in this lifetime, and isn't it encouraging to know that we have as many chances as we need?
How does a Christian take life and death? Christian or anybody in a linear view. They try, those who do, to lead a pious life, as much as possible, and then they'll go to heaven, or hell, but what if they have some kind of fallback, or they don't manage to get the last sacrament (in the case of a Catholic; the "last oiling" or whatever it's called), then they're doomed. And what about those who never tried, how can God, in their opinion, tolerate to stay away from those children of his who are rotting in hell?
Syamasundara - July 25, 2008 7:05 pm
Another point about the cyclical view being considered primitive: there has been a lot of propaganda.
Take those cultures, like the Celts who would plant a tree at the birth of a child, and feed it their placenta, or just the fact the in the list of average "good karma" deeds in the Vedas we find "planting trees". It may sound pagan, but I prefer that to the suicidal and brainless logging that's going on these days on the planet, or any other non-environmental behavior of the sort.
Bhrigu - July 27, 2008 6:17 pm
Another common argument against the cyclical view of time is that there is no evidence of it.
"Yes, nature moves in circles, but only superficially -- it is not that the same flowers will bloom in spring or the same sun rise the next morning. Our experience of 2500 years of human history also shows that it repeats itself only in the most generalised way. We don't see the Roman empire rising again, or the Mongols sweeping down from their plains yet another time. And we certainly have no experience of the gradual decline of longevity, height, etc that your old Bhagavata speaks of. What we see is a gradual, lineal evolution from a to b, to c and so on.
"And your spiral example really works against you, since a spiral has a beginning and an end. QED."
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Swami - July 28, 2008 3:37 am
Another common argument against the cyclical view of time is that there is no evidence of it.
"Yes, nature moves in circles, but only superficially -- it is not that the same flowers will bloom in spring or the same sun rise the next morning. Our experience of 2500 years of human history also shows that it repeats itself only in the most generalised way. We don't see the Roman empire rising again, or the Mongols sweeping down from their plains yet another time. And we certainly have no experience of the gradual decline of longevity, height, etc that your old Bhagavata speaks of. What we see is a gradual, lineal evolution from a to b, to c and so on.
"And your spiral example really works against you, since a spiral has a beginning and an end. QED."
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I do not think what you have said represents a very clear understanding of the notion of cyclical time.
Here is an article of some interest.
Syamasundara - July 28, 2008 8:16 am
"And your spiral example really works against you, since a spiral has a beginning and an end. QED."
In geometry every open line is considered infinite, otherwise it's a segment. A spiral is an open line, the extremities of which you could virtual extend ad infinitum.
Bhrigu - July 28, 2008 10:51 am
Ok, but what about the history-argument?
Gaura-Vijaya Das - July 28, 2008 4:42 pm
Ok, but what about the history-argument?
Spirals is of rough intuitive value. Otherwise to put something into a mathematical formula is impossible. It just illustrates the general nature of world which has overlapping content in each cycle but also has some new variety. It is not an exact repeat of all events like a robot repeating same motions all the time. Then there is no longer play it is a chore.
Swami - July 28, 2008 5:25 pm
The Hindu yuga cycles speak of a quality of time repeating itself, not that each and every event repeats itself again and again. The phrase "history repeats itself" is not to be taken literally.
Note that postmodernism is characterized by, among other things, the rejection of modernity's notion of linear time. However, it may be reasonable to conclude, as others have stated earlier on this thread, that there is an overlapping of the two. There is linear time within cyclical time.
Bhrigu - July 28, 2008 5:35 pm
I'm not sure that one could really say that about postmodernism, or at least I have never seen it said before. But even if some people say so, what can we say to the argument about history showing a slow but steady evolution? This is a major problem for most modern Hindu teachers, who have had to somehow reinterpret the basic idea of the yugas, which is of course that of a slow but inexhorable decline. One argument is that we only see an evolution of machinery (yantra-vidya), but to me it does not seem true. Another is that this is just a temporary, short evolution at the beginning of Kali-yuga, but there is as far as I know no scriptural support for that.
Syamasundara - July 28, 2008 6:27 pm
I wish to reiterate the fact that the Vedas spoke of a cakra for conciseness, but there is much more to it than a circle spinning.
There are circles within circles, hours within days within months within seasons within years. Everything, from an electron to the universe, shifts from non-existence to existence all the time; only, in our human perception, the former does that incredibly fast, so that we don't even perceive the moments of non existence, and the latter, incredibly slowly.
The fact remains that everything in this world seems to undergo genesis, maintenance, decline, and back again. So, here we are again at the original and simple idea of a circle.
Swami - July 28, 2008 7:15 pm
Something from William Dunning
"John Boslough, writing about "The Enigma of Time", notes that many scholars believe all people once perceived themselves as living in a state of "timeless present"; they did not discriminate between past and future. They pictured time as circular: it turned back upon itself, and all things were possible at all times. Buddhists and Taoists have retained this perception of circular time, and they consider history to be a fiction, because things always return to a former state. Because of differences in human perception, the struggle to affix numbers to the passage of time has been one of humanity's "most elusive and protracted pursuits" and the achievement of this goal parallels our evolution into a "complex modern world". Clocks were devised so that individuals might understand what time belonged to their employers and what was their own. The globe was not divided into time zones until 1884.
Recent changes in concept even encourage scientists such as Stephen Hawking to avoid linear concepts of time, and thus history. Hawking finds "imaginary time" - which is necessary in the unification of quantum mechanics with gravity - to be a more useful construct. He explains that when measurements are determined in real time "singularities" are established that demand a beginning and an end to the universe, and this creates boundaries that breed contradictions in the laws of science.
In imaginary time there is no important difference between going forward and going backward; consequently, recent scientific laws "do not distinguish between the past and the future". Hawking suggests that "imaginary time is really the real time, and that what we call real time is just a figment of our imaginations". In short, recent scientific constructs seem more supportive of the pre-modern and the tribal constructs of cyclical time than of the European construct of linear time. Post-modern cultures have come to accept the fact that history changes with each point of view and have so rejected history as 'truth' that Richard Stengel was incited to write in Time magazine: 'History becomes a minstrel show glimpsed through a musty lens distorted by tradition, popular culture and wishful thinking.'"
Swami - July 28, 2008 7:28 pm
From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
"On Nietzsche's view, the life of an individual and a culture depend upon their ability to repeat an unhistorical moment, a kind of forgetfulness, along with their continuous development through time, and the study of history ought therefore to emphasize how each person or culture attains and repeats this moment. There is no question, then, of reaching a standpoint outside of history or of conceiving past times as stages on the way to the present. Historical repetition is not linear, but each age worthy of its designation repeats the unhistorical moment that is its own present as “new.” In this respect, Nietzsche would agree with Charles Baudelaire, who describes modernity as “the transient, the fleeting, the contingent” that is repeated in all ages (Cahoone 2003, 100), and postmodernists read Nietzsche's remarks on the eternal return accordingly."
Swami - July 28, 2008 8:29 pm
More simply stated, postmodernism sees that things and events can have two different meanings at the same time. A more rigid rational and logocentric or linear approach tries to avoid or reduce ambiguity as much as possible. Postmodern thought sees simultaneous views not as contradictory but as an integral part of the complex patterning of reality. Thus it does not work well with a linear-historical-time mindset.
Babhru Das - July 28, 2008 10:41 pm
More simply stated, postmodernism sees that things and events can have two different meanings at the same time. A more rigid rational and logocentric or linear approach tries to avoid or reduce ambiguity as much as possible. Postmodern thought sees simultaneous views not as contradictory but as an integral part of the complex patterning of reality.
I like the way you've stated this. So, to Bhrigu's earlier reservation, we may say that postmodern thought discourages (at the least) privileging linear concepts of time over cyclical concepts (ditto with privileging any "rational," linear , or positivistic kind of thinking over others, which Kenneth Burke called "non-rational" only to avoid many connotations of "irrational," to which he otherwise would likely not have objected.
Postmodern thought sees simultaneous views not as contradictory but as an integral part of the complex patterning of reality.
This is one of the aspects of Burke's thinking that postmodernists adopted. He called it perspective by incongruity, and, among other things, it's a way of breaking down dichotomies, unlinking words (and ideas) characteristically seen as linked at the hip, giving us room to fuse words characteristically seen as mutually exclusive. (For example, using perspectives by incongruity, some scholars have referred to Burke as a "classical postmodernist.") It's a fun way to engage in criticism, I thought much more human and alive than deconstruction (or maybe it was just Derrida, who, although some of his ideas were interesting, lacked human appeal in my mind).
Hmmm . . . now I miss some of the books I'd been carrying around for so long and ended up giving away last summer.
Gaura-Vijaya Das - July 29, 2008 12:02 am
I'm not sure that one could really say that about postmodernism, or at least I have never seen it said before. But even if some people say so, what can we say to the argument about history showing a slow but steady evolution? This is a major problem for most modern Hindu teachers, who have had to somehow reinterpret the basic idea of the yugas, which is of course that of a slow but inexhorable decline. One argument is that we only see an evolution of machinery (yantra-vidya), but to me it does not seem true. Another is that this is just a temporary, short evolution at the beginning of Kali-yuga, but there is as far as I know no scriptural support for that.
Bhrigu thank you bringing up great arguments to enhance the understanding of everybody. Yes all the issue about declining heights and life expectancy can unsettle any reasonable person to accept the one-sided ISKCON version of GV. So we need to understand everything better.
Swami - July 29, 2008 2:09 am
Before anyone veers off too far into the postmodern "reality," which is perhaps as much sympathetic as it is atagonistic to Gaudiya Vaisnavism, here is something funny to read. Wonder why you can't understand postmodernism, even with a dictionary in hand? Interestingly, this critique was written by Dawkins. It is interesting becasue it demonstrates how he cannot live practically within the parameters of his worldview. As others have questioned, How can Dawkins and the rest of his materialistic rationalists call anything that the postmoderns write “nonsense?” Where is his materialistic standard of “sense?” What empirical unit of measure can he point to when he accuses the postmoderns of deception? What in the scientific material world of test tubes and microscopes can be used to determine amounts of honesty?
Dawkins's dilemma aside, there is a lot of truth if not humor in this excerpt worth considering.
As is now rather well known, in 1996 Sokal submitted to the American journal Social Text a paper called 'Transgressing the Boundaries: towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity.' From start to finish the paper was nonsense. It was a carefully crafted parody of postmodern metatwaddle. Sokal was inspired to do this by Paul Gross and Normal Levitt's Higher Superstition: the academic left and its quarrels with science (Johns Hopkins, 1994), an important book which deserves to become as well known in Britain as it already is in America. Hardly able to believe what he read in this book, Sokal followed up the references to postmodern literature, and found that Gross and Levitt did not exaggerate. He resolved to do something about it. In Gary Kamiya's words:
Anyone who has spent much time wading through the pious, obscurantist, jargon-filled cant that now passes for 'advanced' thought in the humanities knew it was bound to happen sooner or later: some clever academic, armed with the not-so-secret passwords ('hermeneutics,' 'transgressive,' 'Lacanian,' 'hegemony,' to name but a few) would write a completely bogus paper, submit it to an au courant journal, and have it accepted . . . Sokal's piece uses all the right terms. It cites all the best people. It whacks sinners (white men, the 'real world'), applauds the virtuous (women, general metaphysical lunacy) . . . And it is complete, unadulterated bullshit – a fact that somehow escaped the attention of the high-powered editors of Social Text, who must now be experiencing that queasy sensation that afflicted the Trojans the morning after they pulled that nice big gift horse into their city.
Sokal's paper must have seemed a gift to the editors because this was a physicist saying all the right-on things they wanted to hear, attacking the 'post-Enlightenment hegemony' and such uncool notions as the existence of the real world. They didn't know that Sokal had also crammed his paper with egregious scientific howlers, of a kind that any referee with an undergraduate degree in physics would instantly have detected. It was sent to no such referee. The editors, Andrew Ross and others, were satisfied that its ideology conformed to their own, and were perhaps flattered by references to their own works. This ignominious piece of editing rightly earned them the 1996 Ig Nobel Prize for literature.
Notwithstanding the egg all over their faces, and despite their feminist pretensions, these editors are dominant males in the academic lekking arena. Andrew Ross himself has the boorish, tenured confidence to say things like "I am glad to be rid of English Departments. I hate literature, for one thing, and English departments tend to be full of people who love literature"; and the yahooish complacency to begin a book on 'science studies' with these words: "This book is dedicated to all of the science teachers I never had. It could only have been written without them." He and his fellow 'cultural studies' and 'science studies' barons are not harmless eccentrics at third rate state colleges. Many of them have tenured professorships at some of America's best universities. Men of this kind sit on appointment committees, wielding power over young academics who might secretly aspire to an honest academic career in literary studies or, say, anthropology. I know – because many of them have told me – that there are sincere scholars out there who would speak out if they dared, but who are intimidated into silence. To them, Alan Sokal will appear as a hero, and nobody with a sense of humour or a sense of justice will disagree. It helps, by the way, although it is strictly irrelevant, that his own left wing credentials are impeccable.
In a detailed post-mortem of his famous hoax, submitted to Social Text but predictably rejected by them and published elsewhere, Sokal notes that, in addition to numerous half truths, falsehoods and non-sequiturs, his original article contained some "syntactically correct sentences that have no meaning whatsoever." He regrets that there were not more of the latter: "I tried hard to produce them, but I found that, save for rare bursts of inspiration, I just didn't have the knack." If he were writing his parody today, he'd surely have been helped by a virtuoso piece of computer programming by Andrew Bulhak of Melbourne: the Postmodernism Generator. Every time you visit it, at http://www.cs.monash.edu.au/cgi-bin/postmodern, it will spontaneously generate for you, using falutless grammatical principles, a spanking new postmodern discourse, never before seen. I have just been there, and it produced for me a 6,000 word article called "Capitalist theory and the subtextual paradigm of context" by "David I.L.Werther and Rudolf du Garbandier of the Department of English, Cambridge University" (poetic justice there, for it was Cambridge who saw fit to give Jacques Derrida an honorary degree). Here's a typical sentence from this impressively erudite work:
"If one examines capitalist theory, one is faced with a choice: either reject neotextual materialism or conclude that society has objective value. If dialectic desituationism holds, we have to choose between Habermasian discourse and the subtextual paradigm of context. It could be said that the subject is contextualised into a textual nationalism that includes truth as a reality. In a sense, the premise of the subtextual paradigm of context states that reality comes from the collective unconscious." 
Syamasundara - July 29, 2008 2:38 am
:He He:Syama Gopala Dasa - July 29, 2008 8:14 pm
ha those teachers taught me we are living in post-postmodernism now.
Gaura-Vijaya Das - July 29, 2008 11:54 pm
One more discussion which comes up is how is earth so important for mahavisnu just to reinstate dharma in small place like bharatvarash out of millions of planets, stars and galaxies.
Syamasundara - July 30, 2008 12:15 am
He appeared all over the place! In the Kurma lila he appeared in a handful of different forms: Kurma, the one on top of Meru, Mohini, Dhanvantari, etc.